Embrace AI or fall behind the only choices facing today’s business leaders
Ever since Chat GPT erupted into the world in November of 2022, business has never been the same. As we approach the one-year anniversary of this groundbreaking event, it’s clear – business leaders of all kinds must embrace this technology or risk being left behind.
AI facilitates adaptability
As savvy business leaders know, staying nimble and being adaptable is key. Yet, entrepreneurs and executives who allow themselves to be distracted by every little development in their environment risk losing sight of what’s really important and falling into unproductive detours.
AI helps business professionals avoid this fate. Because it tirelessly masters routine administrative tasks, AI takes work off your proverbial plate, freeing you up to direct your energy and attention toward the things that matter. AI can handle your scheduling, take notes in your meetings, generate transcripts of recordings, manage your contracts and other documents, scour the Internet for data on your customers and competition, and even generate marketing ideas for reaching your target audience.
While rapid advancements in AI technology require businesses to evolve to remain competitive, AI also enables executives to keep their strategic focus.
AI increases efficiency
Automation also streamlines processes and reduces costs, which is why successful leaders integrate AI and robotics to optimize production and increase efficiency. Incidentally, these efficiencies also often enhance the customer experience. AI can speed up orders, provide transparency to customers, such as tracking information on shipments, and solicit feedback by prompting customers to leave reviews.
Because this technology can operate independently with minimal human oversight, it also enables businesses to expand their services to previously underserved populations. For instance, chatbots in the financial sector can answer people’s questions about money and investing.
AI promotes data-driven decision-making
AI quickly and efficiently amasses lakes of data from which it can generate powerful insights. In this way, it enables data-driven decision-making. For instance, business leaders can use AI to track customer preferences and market trends, as well as identify areas for operational improvement.
Unlike human beings, who may allow predispositions to sway their findings, AI dispassionately reviews the evidence and spots patterns that may seem counterintuitive. This means it can bring ideas to the table that human staff would never have conceived. While some may be ruled out quickly, others may merit careful consideration. Every now and then, one may even constitute a genuine flash of brilliance.
Ethical AI requires transparency
It’s precisely because AI is so powerful that ethical considerations must always be weighed when employing it. If businesses harness AI in devious ways to reap a profit, they might be able to boost their bottom line for a while, but their efforts can be expected to backfire in the long term.
Today’s customers expect transparency, fairness, and corporate social responsibility. Indeed, 64 percent of consumers consider companies’ social responsibility efforts to be important, a number that only gets bigger for the younger generations. That’s why deploying AI ethically is necessary in order to build and maintain trust with consumers and other stakeholders.
The AI watershed
When businesses fail to keep up with the times and incorporate cutting-edge technologies, they may survive for a time, but ultimately, they fail.
Just consider the example of Borders big-box bookstores. This juggernaut competed successfully with Barnes & Noble for three decades, but unlike this rival and Amazon, they never embraced the Internet. Instead, they opened more and more brick-and-mortar stores. As a result, Borders filed for bankruptcy in 2011.
Today, businesses face another watershed moment. As the future of work accelerates, the time has come to embrace AI.
Ed Watal is an AI Thought Leader and Technology Investor. One of his key projects includes BigParser (an Ethical AI Platform and Data Commons for the World). He is also the founder of Intellibus, an INC 5000 “Top 100 Fastest Growing Software Firm” in the U.S., and the lead faculty of AI Masterclass – a joint operation between NYU SPS and Intellibus. Forbes Books is collaborating with Watal on a seminal book on our AI Future. Board Members and C-level executives at the World’s Largest Financial Institutions rely on him for strategic transformational advice.
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