Thought Leadership

How to Build AI-Powered Apps That Guide Better Decisions

Niall Gallacher

Director, Business Value, Customer Success

In my many years developing enterprise software, one common theme has emerged: great business applications don’t just process transactions – they help and guide users in their decision-making.

Operational decision-making happens in real time, in the field, on the shop floor, and at the service desk. It is dynamic, often complex, and usually highly contextual. Yet too many enterprise systems are built as passive record-keeping tools rather than active decision enablers. This is a missed opportunity. When designed thoughtfully, enterprise software becomes more than a tool for managing operations, it becomes a platform for shaping them intelligently.

The Missing Layer: Decision Support Through Contextual Data

Operational users – whether operational managers, work planners, schedulers, dispatchers, supervisors, or customer service reps – often face a multitude of trade-offs. Do I assign the more experienced technician to the more complex job or the really urgent job? Should I expedite this shipment or consolidate it with other shipments?

These aren’t decisions that can be automated blindly. They require judgment. But this judgment needs support: timely, relevant, and contextual data. These are decisions that benefit from context: past performance, resource availability, customer history, or financial impact. But too often, the data they need is scattered throughout multiple data silos or buried in different reports.

In a recent project with a global logistics provider, we re-engineered a scheduling application. Initially, it allowed dispatchers to assign jobs based on simple availability. But we saw that experienced dispatchers were relying on spreadsheets and tribal knowledge – factoring in historical job duration, traffic patterns, driver reliability, and customer importance, all based on their experience. We integrated those data points into the app interface and gave users simple comparison tools. The result: better decisions, fewer delays, and a substantial reduction in rework.

When we provide relevant, contextual data in the moment of the decision, business applications stop being mere data entry forms and start becoming decision accelerators.

Elevating Judgment with AI

The evolution doesn’t stop at data integration. AI is redefining how business applications can support human judgment.

When paired with human expertise, AI enables three major enhancements:

  1. Contextual Recommendations, Not Commands
    Rather than replacing decision-makers, AI augments them. It can suggest priorities, propose actions, or highlight outliers – always leaving room for human override. This is especially valuable in operational contexts where nuance and accountability matter.
  2. Continuous Learning from Operational Feedback
    As users make decisions, AI learns. Each override or acceptance becomes a data point that refines future suggestions. This feedback loop turns static software into adaptive systems that evolve with the organization.
  3. Analyse and Summarise Unstructured Data at Scale
    AI can very quickly analyse vast quantities of unstructured data and summarise the key attributes and their importance in an easy and accessible manner. When done well, this complex analysis happens seamlessly in the background and simply surfaces relevant insights at the appropriate time.

But here’s the critical point: AI only adds value when built on a foundation of clean, contextual, and well-integrated data—and when embedded into a user experience that supports trust and transparency. If users don’t understand why a recommendation was made, they won’t follow it. If the data is misaligned with their reality, they’ll work around it.

Design Principles for Decision-Centric, AI-Enabled Applications

Whether AI-driven or not, the same core principles apply:

  1. Map Decisions, Not Just Workflows
    Identify the real moments of choice. What data and context would make those choices smarter?
  2. Show Comparisons, Not Just Metrics
    Raw data is inert. Insight emerges from contrast: against benchmarks, targets, across time, or between options.
  3. Explain the “Why”
    Especially with AI, transparency is critical. A black-box recommendation is easy to ignore. A guided suggestion with rationale is far more likely to drive behaviour.
  4. Design for Collaboration Between Human and Machine
    AI should act as a co-pilot, not a backseat driver – offering suggestions rather than commands; enhancing intuition, not replacing it.

From Software to Strategic Advantage

Enterprise leaders increasingly recognize that their systems must do more than automate, they must also assist and advise. When business applications support real-time, context-aware, and AI-augmented decision-making, they empower teams to act with greater precision and confidence.

The future of enterprise software is not transactional – it’s advisory. The organisations that get there first will be the ones whose tools don’t just record the past, but shape the next best action.

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