Now that the results of the U.S. presidential election and Senate and House races are known, the Trump administration is widely expected to rescind the Biden executive order on artificial intelligence (AI). As the drumbeat of AI news continues, with major investments and acquisitions creating headlines, it's important to pause and appreciate the revolution underway.
The coming months will likely bring more changes. The Biden order aimed to erect guardrails around the technology, in the absence of Congressional action. Even without imposing rules, governments at all levels should think about how the efficiencies of using AI can enable the people they employ to better serve the public, particularly when staff budgets are tight.
However, our international professional survey found that 57% of those in government are not using AI as they await further clarity about the technology’s capabilities and safety. And yet, there’s a compelling case to be made for the potential benefits of AI, if budget-constrained government workforces can more quickly and efficiently serve the public.
In any case, this technology transition is happening too fast for responsible businesses to await comprehensive government guidance. In fact, this is much more than a tech transition. The advent of accessible AI represents a business transformation with enormous potential benefits to organizations that recognize and seize this opportunity. And because AI is no mere plug-and-play technology, organizations must be prepared to manage the changes in staffing and processes required to implement, adopt, and gain value from AI tools.
In search of new business models
At our company, we’re both a user of some AI products on the market and a partner in developing AI technologies for our customers. From our vantage, we know that the AI revolution is already well underway in the corporate world.
As the business world navigates this tech transition, we’d be wise to draw upon lessons from previous information technology revolutions. During my career, I’ve seen the advent of the PC on every desk, the rollout of the internet as a business medium, mobile computing, social media, cloud computing, and now generative AI. Generative AI will be as disruptive and as transformative to any profession as any one of those previous technology shifts. But it’s happening even faster.
Still, each of the earlier revolutions has something to teach about the business opportunities from thoughtfully adopting new, transformative technologies. One lesson, whatever the profession: the need to adjust management practices, including recruitment and training on the most appropriate use of new technologies.
Past revolutions also hold lessons about heeding the risks that can come from blindly rushing to embrace the next new thing and the even greater risk of choosing to sit out the revolution altogether.
The business opportunities from adopting AI begin simply enough: saving time on routine administrative tasks that generative AI can do just as well but much faster.
In our international survey of people in law, accounting, and other professional services, we found that many respondents expect AI to save them as much as 4 hours a week in the next year and up to 12 hours weekly within the next 5 years. For lawyers, for example, that's the equivalent of an additional colleague for every 10 team members, expanding their firm’s ability to take on more clients.
That kind of change might mean rethinking the time-honored revenue model for law firms. Instead of predominantly billing by the human hour, they might want to consider new types of value-based pricing. AI may open up new lines of business while requiring firms to re-evaluate their tech budgets and talent needs. And because AI could soon enable first-year associates to do the work of a fourth-year member of the practice, law firms might need to revise their approach to, and the trajectory of, their apprenticeship models.
Indeed, whatever the profession or industry, the AI revolution might lead to new types of business models altogether. Consider how a startup 15 years ago, Uber, took advantage of the smartphone-based mobile computing revolution to create a new category of transportation services that has now become part of everyday life in more than 10,000 cities around the world.
It’s not only startups that can capitalize on tech revolutions. Big-box retailer Walmart remains a dominant force in brick-and-mortar shopping, but it has also effectively used the internet, mobile apps, and the scale of cloud computing to become second only to Amazon in the U.S. e-commerce market.
Caution may be understandable—but there’s an even greater risk
To be sure, there are risks in rushing aboard a tech trend without a clearly defined and thought-through strategy. As the World Wide Web sped up the internet revolution from the mid-1990s onward, the so-called dot-com boom—driven by frenzied investment in many flimsy business concepts—ended in a stock market crash.
For many organizations today, a go-slower approach to AI is understandable. This is true for many government professionals, given budget constraints and the potential for negative unintended consequences.
However, with the AI transition already well underway, the people and organizations that don’t adapt and adopt will risk irrelevance being left behind. Young talent will eschew job offers from organizations that don’t adopt the latest technologies, while new lines of business will emerge creating first-mover advantages for early adopters. High-performing organizations will benefit from the steeper learning curves associated with the adoption of new generative AI technologies, creating sustainable competitive advantages.
Again, prior tech revolutions can teach us this important lesson. Consider how Nokia, the world leader in mobile phones in the early 2000s, failed to adapt to the smartphone revolution. Countless lesser-known companies in various fields similarly sealed their fate by failing to stay technologically relevant.
That’s a lesson for all of us. When it comes to the AI revolution, all organizations—whether moving aggressively or with thoughtful caution—must be thinking strategically. And they should work in partnership with their suppliers, customers, and constituents to nimbly navigate this transformative transition.
Sitting out a tech revolution is simply not an option.
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