The exponential growth in interest in artificial intelligence that came with the introduction of Chat-GPT in the past few months has brought the discussion of how it might affect businesses to the forefront. The launch of several AI-powered features in the everyday tools we use from tech giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, who spend billions to design them, and the excitement that these features create is one of the many reasons there seems to be a sudden interest in AI as captured by the surge in searches for the “AI” keyword on search engines.
In this article, I aim to introduce you to some of my predictions about the changes that we might witness as AI-powered tools become more acceptable and commonly used. We’ll talk about the likely outcome for businesses that refuse to adapt and point you to the very predictable success of companies that have embraced AI to their advantage, starting with perhaps the most important of the five things you must know.
Only the Strong Will Survive
There is no better way to capture the scale of the paradigm shift we are currently witnessing with this new era of artificial intelligence and the level of impact it will have on industries than this very simple truth.
As we’ve seen with big tech giants who have taken the early lead on AI spending in a bid for an advantage over competitors, investing in digital transformation as a small business entrepreneur will more than likely be the only way to survive the onslaught that the artificial intelligence-powered era will usher in for businesses that fail to adapt.
With less than 50% of companies looking to invest in AI to integrate it into their businesses and just 17% of business owners out of 1,500 surveyed saying they are familiar with what artificial intelligence is or how it would affect their company, as a business owner, you’ll give yourself and your company the best shot at thriving the quicker you integrate AI into your business offering.
The Speed of Service Delivery Will Become More Important
“Through AI, computers have the ability to harness massive amounts of data and use their learned intelligence to make optimal decisions and discoveries in fractions of the time that it would take humans.” —Mike Thomas
One of the most common uses of AI today is to quickly perform routine tasks that would otherwise have taken a lot of time. With the introduction of artificial intelligence robots and processes that perform these tasks quicker and more efficiently than humans ever could, the general public will become increasingly less tolerant of slow delivery of products and services than before.
For instance, we’re starting to see the importance of the speed of service delivery that AI enables in the health industry where it is helping doctors to identify diseases more quickly and accurately and speed up drug discovery.
Since the speed of service delivery is a strong determining factor in the feeling consumers associate with your brand as an entrepreneur, it would be wise to take advantage of AI to improve the associated positive feeling for your company.
All Industries Will Be Disrupted
In a recent interview with ABC News, OpenAI founder Sam Altman alluded to the fact that artificial intelligence is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs.
Although he predicted that we would create new occupations in the future as time goes on, his company recently published a paper on the jobs that are most under threat from artificial intelligence, and it included occupations like writing, customer service, translation and interpretation services, web development, law practitioners, etcetera.
As of today, these are some of the careers with little use of creativity that are repetitive and, as renowned AI expert Kai-Fu Lee advised in a recent lecture at Northwestern University, the people with those jobs must learn new skills so as not to be left behind.
More on Industry Disruption
According to Lee’s observation, this new era of widespread use of artificial intelligence might lead to large-scale workforce retraining. IBM estimates that as many as 120 million workers in twelve of the world’s largest economies may need to be retrained. Given the constantly evolving nature of technology, the adoption of artificial intelligence would compel companies to continually invest in training and retraining their workforce on things as exhaustive as ethical data collection and privacy as AI adoption becomes full-scale
Customer data will become more important
“For artificial intelligence to be truly smart, it must respect human values, including privacy. If we get this wrong, the dangers are profound.” – Tim Cook
As the adoption of artificial intelligence becomes widespread, companies are likely to place a premium on the importance of data they collect from users. Because this data may become the only advantage they have over competitors, and because consumers are becoming increasingly aware of how these data are being used, acquiring more data from customers may become more contentious. Thus, the value of user data is very likely to become exponentially more important than it currently is.
In conclusion, we believe that understanding and preparedness for these five things we’ve identified in this article are essential for entrepreneurs to thrive in the future of business in this new era of artificial intelligence. The likelihood of your business’s survival is heavily dependent on your knowledge and preparation for the changes ahead.
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