AI Data and the End of Gut-Feel Strategy: Why Strategy Is Becoming More Data-Driven

Relying solely on gut instincts to guide strategy is becoming a thing of the past. In a recent webinar, Ted Jackson, co-founder of ClearPoint Strategy, teamed up with Mathias Mangels, President and Chief Revenue Officer of ReTHINKING WORKS, to discuss how AI and data are changing strategy management.

Strategy management is now a disciplined, data-driven process, not an art guided by gut feel. That means faster, better decisions and better results.

Watch the full webinar recording here.

Rethinking Strategy Execution with AI

Companies have to innovate or fall behind. ReTHINKING WORKS helps organizations innovate by building AI and machine learning into strategy execution. Its platform combines an AI decision engine with agile methods to provide real-time data analysis, predictive insights, and recommendations.

With AI and agile execution together, leaders can move beyond static planning. They can identify risks, optimize resources, and align teams as conditions change.

AI’s real-time insights and predictions are changing several parts of strategy: defining KPIs, setting targets, dashboards, alignment, forecasting vision achievement, and scenario planning.

The Evolution of KPIs and Data-Driven Insights

One of the most important data types in any organization is the KPI.

Five years ago, says Mathias, organizations developed KPI libraries and applied them as they saw fit. “We tried to collect some libraries from the market, from the sector, from trade associations. And we also created our own KPIs by looking into our processes, understanding the challenges, and determining the key success factors around these processes.”

KPI development looks very different today. KPI selection used to rely on static libraries and guesswork. Now AI gives organizations access to global, sector-specific data and predictive insights. They can find both lagging KPIs and the leading indicators that forecast success.

“The world has changed a lot. We have to understand what [KPIs] are really the best fit for a certain challenge an organization has. Today, we have this opportunity to very quickly find out different aspects of KPIs and their applications by sector, tapping into the ones that best fit our objective, best fit what we want to measure.”

AI helps organizations identify the right capabilities and key success factors for their own journey. ClearPoint uses AI to suggest KPIs for specific objectives and industries. KPI selection has gone from a manual, time-consuming task to a strategic brainstorming exercise, and measurement becomes more precise.

Target-Setting Gets Smarter with AI

Traditional target-setting leaned heavily on historical performance data and benchmarking against industry peers. AI now combines historical data with real-time signals and sector trends to predict which future goals are realistic and achievable.

“You can today, very quickly, link your historical database with the databases of your sector. By foresighting scenarios, you can choose the scenario that you think will be the most likely one.”

Instead of targets that only inspire, organizations can now design strategies grounded in data-driven foresight that align with evolving market conditions, economic factors, and regional developments. Ambitious goals can then be both motivating and attainable.

In healthcare, for example, AI-driven scenario planning helps organizations set ambitious but realistic long-term targets that account for new treatments and wellbeing trends.

From Static Dashboards to Dynamic Control Towers

Dashboards have long been a staple for decision-makers, showing historical and forecast data. The next step is the “control tower”: an AI-powered platform that acts as a command center for steering strategy day to day.

Control towers pull in live data, alert leaders to risks and opportunities, assess initiative progress, and recommend actions to course-correct or speed up. An AI agent can suggest the staffing competencies a project needs, or flag a project that is lagging because of resource constraints.

“[AI] tells you not only the initiatives, but also how initiatives will have to be staffed and with what kind of competency for you to be successful.”

For example, “‘The competency has to be Fred and Alice, and don't forget Jane, because they really understand this. And also include that subject matter expert, John; he is the guy that will help make that initiative happen.’

“I see our journey going that direction, and it's not fictitious, future thinking. It's happening today already.” With AI assistants doing this work, decision-making moves from reactive to proactive.

AI for Strategic Alignment and Collaboration

Achieving alignment across departments and initiatives is essential. AI tools now help check the coherence of strategy maps and scorecards both vertically (top-down) and horizontally (cross-departmental).

In case studies, AI has uncovered collaboration gaps and conflicting projects, which helps prevent duplicated effort.

Ted points out that ClearPoint has always had what they call an alignment matrix, where you can see how all your objectives, measures, or initiatives play against each other. You also have the ability to drill down from a goal to see everything that links and aligns to it.

“We’ve had many of our clients say they've saved several million dollars finding two different projects that were going against each other.”

To make it even easier to flag conflicts, ClearPoint will soon launch an AI alignment tool. It will let users look across the organization and see if targets are aligned and if departmental goals will help you reach your organizational goals. Finding and addressing these conflicts in your strategy could save organizations time and millions in operational efficiencies.

Predicting Vision Achievement with AI

Visions are aspirational and rarely go exactly as planned. AI helps build realistic roadmaps and keep adjusting them, so organizations can correct course quickly as internal and external factors change.

For example, after setting aggressive growth targets, ClearPoint used AI to generate a strategic plan based on past results, which closely matched its human-led planning, leading to more informed target adjustments.

Scenario Planning Enhanced by AI

Scenario planning prepares you for several possible outcomes instead of predicting one future with certainty. AI adds to this by evaluating the probability and impact of each scenario in real time, so leadership can pick the most likely paths and adapt quickly.

It monitors risks, gives early warnings, and suggests actions to reduce risks or seize opportunities. Scenario plans become living documents that change with business conditions.

Final words of advice for getting started with strategy management…

If you are new to strategy management, start simple but rich. Build a solid decision-making infrastructure, and don’t overcomplicate it at the start.

• Use tools like ClearPoint to monitor strategy actively.
• Learn from the outcomes.
• Add sophistication to strategic design and data use over time.
• Secure full leadership support.

AI is now foundational to strategy, not a supplement. Take advantage of it.