By Chris Ingold MBA | Systems Thinker, Change Agent, Catalyst
Originally published on LinkedIn
“We’ve got an AI project!” says just about everyone in 2024.
“Why?” asks no-one.
Well, until now.
It’s August 24 and a minor earthquake on the US stock market is bringing back memories of the 2000s dotcom crash. It’s also raising some of the same questions.
How quickly will the revolution come? Will it actually make money? Will there enough money to go around?
All this makes the question of ‘why’ super-relevant. Why are you or your organization using, buying or building AI products – beyond just fear of missing out?
Many tech companies haven’t had a choice. Investors have been breathing down their necks to ensure they have an exciting AI product coming to market.
However investors can make a killing off a bubble if they sell at just the right time, whilst the firms themselves still need to make good on their product strategy.
So it helps if a product is exciting and happens to use AI, rather than relying purely on the AI to make it exciting. Savvy companies are already leaning into this, drawing customers attention specifically to those areas where their AI-enabled products aren’t using AI, but are leveraging what makes their company unique.
We know that that AI will revolutionise our lives.
We know this because it already has – facial recognition, navigation, fraud prevention, weather forecasting and of course the humble internet search engine have all benefited from the evolution of AI-enabled tools during the 21st century, largely delivering on 20th century innovations.
So will the latest advances in generative AI cause a similar revolution, once the novelty has worn off?
Probably, yes.
However it will take a little more time before we know exactly how, and there’s no guarantee that the spoils will be evenly or even widely distributed.
Or how many aftershocks the market will face between now and then.
So what do we do in the meantime?
If the underlying AI technology is your entire business, carry on – we’re all depending on you.
If not:
Firstly, don’t let AI drag resources away from something else you need to do to remain profitable. Even if that’s less sexy.
Secondly, if you’re exploring AI, invest as much time keeping abreast of what everyone else is doing as you spend developing your own products. Second-mover advantage can be very powerful.
Lastly, remember that the value of your business comes from that which makes you unique. That may be less about the tech itself, and more about how you use it.
