Some context: Recently all kind of salesmen have been knocking on our company's door to provide their "artificial intelligence" expertise and projects suggestions. Some don't know the difference between words estimation and validation (really), some have extraordinary powerpoints and paint themselves as gurus of the field. Our management has gone with the hype and definitely we're starting some kind of project on "artificial intelligence" (meaning rpa with some machine learning possibly).
What is the best way to start when we don't yet know to what problem we want to apply all this and I'm worried it will lead to long expensive projects with meager results? What are the things to watch out for? Any good practical books or war stories out there?