Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Natural Language Processing, Vision AI, and Generative AI have been in development for many years now, but recently the technology is receiving more attention, business usage, and credibility than ever before. AI chatbot ChatGPT3 was released in November 2022 and managed to reach 100 Million users in just 60 days, far exceeding expectations. Microsoft has already invested $13 Billion into OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab behind ChatGPT, and announced that it will integrate the chatbot into its Office 365 product suite under the name “Copilot”. The increasing hype surrounding ChatGPT on a level never-before seen for Artificial Intelligence, providing eye-opening and horizon-broadening perspectives on the potential of AI technology generally.
Of course, AI itself is nothing new: the technology has existed for many years, and whether we know it or not, we experience it regularly in many different forms, from social media algorithms to fraud detection in eCommerce. Many of the most “mature” AI models are Machine Learning (ML) data crunchers which power the recommendations engines at Amazon and Netflix; but other generative AI programs have been on the market for years, such as Jasper AI. ChatGPT isn’t even the only recent entrant to this market: “Bard” from Google has garnered some attention, and there is also Claude, a generative model from Anthropic in which Google has also invested.
As the types of uses of Artificial Intelligence models is expanding, their performance is also improving. AI tools are approaching human-level competence in many business use-cases, and have surpassed humans in others. Correspondingly, the number of AI-oriented news stories in business journals and the mainstream media has sky-rocketed.
As a result of the sheer speed of the development and improvement of AI capabilities in recent years, we face a strange challenge as a society and economy… We have great solutions with a dearth of problems that companies are ready to line them up against.
AI has Inverted the Traditional IT & Business Challenge: Now, Coming Up with the Problems is the Hard Part
AI’s capabilities now extend far beyond basic automation of rote tasks or finding patterns in “big data” datasets, problems to which business leaders are accustomed. Given the new feasibility of using AI tools for efficiencies in more complex, traditional human tasks such as writing content, summarizing content, and analyzing content, business executives are understandably worried about finding how they should be using these tools.
Technology leaders are understandably excited about the new landscape of “IT impact” being opened up by AI, but they are often naïve about the risks of switching out human intelligence for machine intelligence too quickly or without guard-rails and protections for key business services. Microsoft’s “racist” Tay chatbot and the recent $100B Google Bard error are two headline-grabbing examples.
CEOs are desperately trying to avoid two ditches relating to new AI capabilities; the road has never been narrower between these ditches. On one side of this road, they want to avoid moving too slowly to adopt these capabilities, and potentially being disrupted by a competitor on the leading edge. On the other side they don’t want the leading edge to become the “bleeding” edge, creating an embarrassment for their brand, a liability, or worse…
Leading-Edge Expertise Has Never Been So Valuable
Lewis & Clark would have had no chance to find a workable route to the ocean without Sacagawea. No one ever scales Mount Everest without experienced sherpas guiding their path. Likewise, in this new territory of powerful & affordable AI tools, risks abound for inexperienced teams attempting to navigate it themselves.
On the leading edge especially, the value proposition for outside expertise is compelling: not only can the right consultant help you find the right answers more quickly – they may be the only way you’ll find those answers at all.
Whether you engage Innovation Vista to provide that outside expertise from our team of 300+ C-level IT leaders, or you look to obtain it from another trusted partner, we encourage you to consider the criticality and value of expert guidance at this strategic crossroads.
No one knows your business as well as you do, but finding the right problems toward which to aim these emerging solutions is a collaborative exercise balancing your knowledge of your strategy & process with an expert’s knowledge of the “art of the possible” in your industry… Make sure the partner with whom you’re collaborating has the experience and the skillset to guide you well.
