Your 2024 AI Roadmap: Where to Start If You Did Nothing in 2023

2023 is over. If your firm didn't implement AI, you might be feeling behind. The truth: you're not as far behind as you think, but you need to move now.

Here's a catch-up roadmap for firms that are starting from zero.

Month 1: Assessment and Quick Wins

Week 1-2: Identify Your Opportunities

Interview your team: where are they spending the most time on non-billable, non-differentiated work? Email management? Meeting note-taking? Document categorization?

Pick the top three opportunities. These are your targets.

Week 3-4: Launch Your First Quick Win

Pick one of the three. It should be something with high volume and clear value. Email triage is a good choice because everyone does it.

Get ChatGPT Enterprise (if you handle sensitive client data) or ChatGPT Plus (if you don't). Run a two-week pilot with 5-10 people. Measure: hours saved? Quality? Adoption?

Goal: demonstrate that AI works and builds support for broader implementation.

Months 2-3: Pilot and Planning

Expand Your First Win

If the email triage pilot worked, roll it out firm-wide. Create one-page usage guidelines. Set up an office hour for questions.

Plan Your Next Two Wins

Based on what you learned from the first pilot, pick the next two AI applications. These might be meeting summaries, document drafting, or intake automation.

For each one: define success metric, identify who will use it, set a 4-week pilot timeline.

Governance and Compliance

Don't wait until you have full governance to get started. But do establish basic policies: what data can be put into AI tools? What data cannot? Who approves new tools?

Have your GC or risk person review your policies. You don't need perfection, just clarity.

Months 4-6: Scaling

Roll Out Your Second and Third Quick Wins

By mid-year, you should have three AI applications running: email triage, meeting summaries, and either document drafting or intake automation.

At this point, AI usage should feel normal, not novel.

Evaluate Vendors and Platforms

You've been using ChatGPT Plus or Enterprise. Evaluate Claude and potentially Google Gemini. Try each for a specific use case. See what works best.

Start thinking about your "vendor stack"—which tools for which jobs.

Plan Your Custom Applications

You've proven AI works. Now think about customization. Build a custom GPT for one of these use cases: internal knowledge management, proposal templates, client FAQ, or document drafting.

This should take 1-2 weeks to build and is high-value.

Months 7-12: Maturation

Develop AI Fluency

By this point, AI is embedded in your workflows. Start training people on effective use, prompt engineering, and critical thinking about AI limitations.

You don't need extensive training. Just make sure people understand when to use AI and when to rely on judgment.

Measure Real Impact

Pull together data on the three applications you've deployed: time saved, error reduction, throughput improvement, user satisfaction.

This becomes your business case for next year's budget.

Plan Year Two

Based on what you learned in Year One, plan deeper: more custom applications, possible infrastructure investment (open source models if it makes sense), more sophisticated automation.

The Budget

For a 50-person firm, here's the rough budget for this roadmap:

• ChatGPT Enterprise: $5,000-$10,000
• Custom application development: $15,000-$25,000 (either internal or vendor)
• Training and change management: $5,000-$10,000
• Governance and compliance review: $5,000-$10,000

Total: $30,000-$55,000 for the year.

Against $100K-$200K in productivity gains, that's a solid ROI.

The Reality Check

If you do this right, by the end of 2024 you won't be behind firms that started in 2023. You'll be caught up.

The key is: start now and move consistently. Don't spend Q1 planning. Don't wait until Q3 to start. January is the time to move.

Your competitors who are smart are launching their 2024 AI roadmaps this week. Match them and you won't fall behind.