While AI is brilliantly placed to solve decisions that are concrete and well-defined, in other contexts it can fail spectacularly, showing connections between facts or events but stumbling when the need to disentangle cause from correlation arises. Human input in the form of subject matter knowledge and common sense are often needed to complement AI. And executives must understand which challenges are right for these new technologies to address.

Any organization intent on surviving and thriving into the future must follow a disciplined approach to “flaring” and “focusing,” as it alternates between broadly imagining and vigorously challenging the possibilities.

To understand how advances in artificial intelligence are likely to change the workplace — and the work of managers — in coming years, you need to know where AI delivers the most value.

Words have become data; the physical states of our machinery have become data; our physical locations have become data; and even our interactions with each other have become data. Three recent books offer expert perspectives on the increasing power and importance of analytics.

“Creating successful cultural products will always be a mixture of art and science,” write Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris in MIT Sloan Management Review. “It appears, however, that the amount of science in the mixture is increasing.”

Assessment tools for better-informing decisions have proliferated. Here’s an insider’s guide to prediction and recommendation techniques and technologies.

How can companies combat the overconfidence and tunnel vision common to so much decision making? By first identifying basic trends and uncertainties and then using them to construct a variety of future scenarios. The author shows how two major companies got a richer picture of the possible future through scenarios — and dramatically improved their strategic planning.