Building an AI Pilot Portfolio After China Fieldwork
Select AI pilots after China fieldwork by data readiness, shared dependencies, measurable outcomes, operating ownership and stop conditions.
A portfolio of AI pilots should expose different uncertainties without overloading the same data and delivery teams. Separate ideas that can be tested now from ideas blocked by missing permissions, integration or ownership. Rank the work by the decision it can resolve, then check whether several apparently small pilots depend on the same constrained resource.
What to evaluate
Portfolio logic
Classify opportunities as act, investigate, monitor or stop.
Pilot design
Define user, baseline, task, data, control, owner and stop condition.
Transfer test
Adapt language, regulation, infrastructure, workforce and customer assumptions.
Governance
Stage procurement, security, legal, finance and executive approvals.
Worked evaluation exercise
The following is an illustrative assessment exercise, not a reported customer result.
Suppose a manufacturer proposes visual inspection, a maintenance assistant and demand forecasting after a visit. Map each project's required datasets and named operating owner before choosing the first experiment. Two may rely on the same incomplete equipment records. A short data-repair exercise could therefore be more valuable than launching both. Set a separate success measure for each pilot and preserve the option to stop one while continuing another.
Questions for the operating team
- Which uncertainty does each pilot reduce?
- What is the smallest reversible test?
- Which observation should remain a watch item?
Warning signs
- Launching one pilot per meeting.
- Vendor momentum bypassing priorities.
- Success criteria written after results.
Planning the visit
Use these questions to scope an industry-focused China AI program. Agree which records and operating workflows can be examined before confirming meetings; host participation and access require confirmation. Our research method explains how we structure the brief and follow-up.
References and scope
These references provide policy or risk-management context. They do not independently verify a host's performance or the illustrative exercise above.