The Future of AI Is Unclear, But Your Business Can’t Afford to Ignore Its Potential
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) presents both immense opportunities and uncertainties regarding its broader implications and future trajectory. Continuous learning, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and risk management are pivotal, along with engaging the wider community for an inclusive AI outlook. By promoting transparency, planning for varied AI scenarios, and ensuring a human-centric focus, businesses and individuals can confidently embrace AI’s potential while being agile amidst its unpredictability.
The future of AI holds tremendous potential, yet it’s not without its uncertainties. This puts the onus on business leaders to move forward with a healthy mix of eagerness and caution. That way, companies can benefit from their future use of AI without becoming bogged down by AI’s known and emerging challenges.
Although the AI landscape has become wider and deeper for two decades and is estimated to be worth $90 billion by 2025, the recent trends in AI development have moved it into a center-stage talking — and debating — point. Pew Research Center noted in early 2022 that 37% of consumers were concerned about AI. Another 45% felt a mixture of concern and excitement. And this was before ChatGPT entered the picture.
Unveiled publicly in November 2022, ChatGPT prompted vigorous discussions and concern. Within months, 1,000 signers, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, called for a six-month moratorium on AI advancements. The letter didn’t pause AI research. However, it brought AI considerations into the spotlight.
Today, the conversation around AI uncertainty continues. But one thing’s for sure: No leader can afford to just “wait it out” to see what happens. AI is rapidly becoming a must-have differentiator for corporations. And businesses that are reluctant to bring AI into their workplaces will inevitably get edged out.
Putting AI Guardrails in Place
This isn’t to suggest that businesses should simply disregard warnings about AI and throw caution to the wind. On the contrary, corporate leaders need to put solid foundational elements into position before leveraging trends in AI development.
For instance, all leaders should make a point to understand the basic principles of AI, as well as the AI products available to them (and their competitors). ChatGPT is a great example. Even though it has its problems, ChatGPT can be used to improve the efficiency of customer service interactions in numerous ways, and it can help streamline areas of the business that are monotonous or straining your team.
Examples include writing personalized and empathetic emails to customers, creating summaries for support agents, executing processes, analyzing complex data sets, and acting as your own supercharged in-house data science team. Is it any wonder that nearly half of companies say they’ve embraced ChatGPT in some capacity? However, it’s just as important to put up guardrails to ensure AI tools remain assets, not liabilities.
As you move forward with AI adoption, leaning into the following strategies can help mitigate some of the risks that are out there. They’ll help you protect your brand from any foreseeable fallout from AI uncertainty.
- Take an adaptive mindset.
AI is dynamic and changeable. It’s not good enough to say that you’ll wait until next year to jump into AI trends. By then, you may have missed out on opportunities to stay ahead in your industry. Therefore, promote mental and operational agility today when it comes to trying AI.
How does this work in a real-world setting? Say you’re a healthcare entity. You know AI’s predictive capabilities are being tested to improve diagnostics and patient care. And these capabilities may be able to save healthcare organizations and consumers up to 10% annually. Because many healthcare companies aren’t using AI yet, you could be an early adopter and help your organization stand out. - Put ethics front and center.
One of the biggest worries about AI is whether it’s ethical. From data privacy and inherent bias to the potential displacement of workers, AI isn’t without ethical considerations. Navigating these issues is paramount.
The good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel in this department. Companies including Accenture have taken measures to implement AI ethics committees and guidelines. Just be sure that you’re maintaining an inclusive approach to ensure AI fairness against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) considerations. - Keep an ear to the ground.
The field of AI is ever-evolving. Consequently, continuous learning is essential. You’ll need to invest in keeping up with breakthroughs such as AI-fueled natural language processing and image recognition. Knowing what’s available will inform how you want to bring AI into your business.
Engaging in AI research through academic partnerships may also be advantageous. For example, IBM’s collaboration with MIT on the Watson AI Lab has led to innovative solutions and funding for other projects. - Develop risk management contingency plans.
Handling uncertainty in AI requires effective risk management strategies and contingency plans. Case in point: In financial services, the deployment of AI for algorithmic trading needs to involve strict protocols to prevent market disruptions.
When creating risk management vehicles, remaining transparent is critical for gaining public trust. Consumers are wary about the future of AI. They want to know that the brands they trust have put measures in place aimed at protecting not only their businesses, but also end users.
What does tomorrow hold for AI development? No one knows for sure. But it’s reshaping the corporate world, making it imperative that you and your teams take practical and pragmatic measures now to leverage AI’s best aspects and bypass its possible downsides.
Written by Danny Shepherd.
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