How AI Can Turn Poor Business Decisions into Advantages: Insights from Serhiy Tokarev

Failure is an inevitable part of both business and life, but what truly matters is how it is addressed. For IT investor and co-founder of Roosh, Serhiy Tokarev, mistakes are not dead ends—they are opportunities to learn, grow, and innovate. Paired with artificial intelligence (AI), these lessons can be transformed into actionable insights. Tokarev shares three ways AI can help businesses turn setbacks into advantages and avoid repeating errors.

Identifying Cause-and-Effect Relationships

One of AI’s most remarkable abilities is its capacity to uncover hidden patterns and non-linear connections in data. Serhiy Tokarev explains that AI offers deeper insights than traditional problem-solving approaches, helping businesses spot correlations that humans might miss.

“For instance, if sales are dropping, we might assume it is due to reduced demand or pricing issues,” Tokarev explains. “AI can identify unexpected factors, like the impact of weather, emerging trends, local preferences, or even geographical nuances.”

This kind of insight is the backbone of technologies like Netflix’s recommendation engine, which keeps users engaged with tailored suggestions. Businesses can apply the same principles to analyze sales trends, refine production workflows, or optimize logistics—turning initial setbacks into opportunities for innovation.

Building an Institutional Memory

AI’s ability to learn from historical data provides another invaluable tool for addressing mistakes. According to Serhiy Tokarev, this involves examining past successes and failures to identify patterns and develop strategies customized to a company’s unique situation.

A prime example of this is UPS’s ORION platform. This AI-powered system optimizes delivery routes by analyzing customer data, route maps, and historical performance. As a result, UPS has significantly reduced travel distances, saving millions of kilometers annually.

“While the first method focuses on immediate issues, this one involves learning from historical data”, Tokarev emphasizes. “AI can thoroughly analyze your organization’s past successes and failures using defined parameters. It then identifies patterns and proposes strategies tailored to your context.”

Tuning into Customers

For businesses that interact directly with consumers, AI excels at extracting valuable insights from customer feedback. Whether through sales conversations, chatbot interactions, or online reviews, AI can uncover patterns that humans might overlook.

“You do not need customers to explicitly point out every issue,” says Tokarev. “AI can analyze communication channels to help refine your business. For example, if multiple users ask the same question within a short period, it is worth addressing proactively on your website or social media.”

This capability helps businesses improve customer satisfaction, refine their offerings, and address issues early—turning potential problems into opportunities to enhance customer experiences.

The Importance of a Balanced Approach

Despite its advantages, AI is not a silver bullet. Serhiy Tokarev highlights the need to balance AI insights with human oversight to make sound decisions. He points to Zillow Offers, a real estate division that relied entirely on algorithms to predict housing prices. Without human input, the system failed to adapt to unexpected disruptions, like the COVID-19 pandemic and labor shortages, leading to significant financial losses and the program’s eventual shutdown.

The entrepreneur explains that AI is a powerful tool, but it is most effective when paired with human judgment. Learning from others’ mistakes and blending AI-driven insights with human expertise leads to better outcomes.