A Leader’s Guide To Identifying High-Value AI Opportunities

InnovationA Leader’s Guide To Identifying High-Value AI OpportunitiesByAmeya Kanitkar,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 28, 2026, 07:30am EDTAmeya Kanitkar is the Co-founder and CTO of Larridin, a Bay Area-based startup building an organizational platform powered by AI. gettyThe launch of ChatGPT in 2022 started a massive cycle of AI experimentation and deployment. But the era of excitement around AI is winding down. Now, it’s time to prove value. ​In my experience leading engineering teams adopting AI tools, I've found that many are struggling to translate that adoption into meaningful business outcomes.One reason is that the biggest opportunities often don’t come from AI assistants, which deliver surface-level productivity gains. Instead, they come from understanding workflows, repetitive decisions and hidden operational frictions that shape how businesses create value every day. The AI-Native Inflection PointWhat’s happened in software engineering represents the biggest transformation the field has seen in two decades.Teams that once relied on human-coded systems now operate with AI at the core. ​Gartner predicts that by 2028, 90% of enterprise software engineers will use AI code assistants. The role of developers is shifting. They’re designing and orchestrating software development done by agents, instead of typing in code and debugging entirely by hand. ​​​​And the results are staggering. I've seen five engineers deliver what once required 25. ​​Truly Strategic AI Opportunities With AI being implemented everywhere, companies often focus on low-value use cases like meeting notes, email drafting and basic reporting, rather than efforts that deliver real business impact. ​ if (!window.cnxel) { window.cnxel = {}; window.cnxel.cmd = []; var iframe = document.createElement('iframe'); iframe.sty...