Why ignoring AI can leave you behind

New tools and technologies are driving data and insights—none more important than artificial intelligence. Already, companies are tapping into its “major business applications” in surprising ways.

If you’re still pretending AI is “just a fad,” you’re basically walking past hundred-dollar bills on the sidewalk because you’re too busy checking if your floppy disk still works.

Yeah, I said it.

I used to think the same. Thought ChatGPT was just a glorified Clippy with a college degree. Fast forward three months, I automated my client proposals, rewrote my website copy, and launched a digital product — all with AI.

That wasn’t productivity.

That was wizardry.

So if you’re sitting there thinking AI is for tech bros and Silicon Valley weirdos, buckle up. You’re about to feel violently seen.

Myth👉 “AI will replace me.” No. AI won’t replace you.

But someone using AI will.

You don’t have to marry the machine. Just take it out for coffee and see what it can do.

Technology advancements have always been a massive driver of innovations that push business forward. Now, the pace of change is faster than ever, with evolutions in artificial intelligence, cloud technologies, and more.

Amy Webb, a quantitative futurist and chief executive officer of the Future Today Institute, tracks these and hundreds of other trends as part of the organization’s annual Tech Trends Report. She discussed these emerging technologies—and the new tools that are providing business leaders with new data and insights to drive intelligent decision-making—at the recent Growth Summit, hosted by Fast Company, Inc., and global technology solutions leader SAP. Here are three key takeaways from the event.

1. Artificial intelligence is ushering in the next wave of computing.

Given the buzz about ChatGPT and other generative chatbots, AI is the “It” technology. But Webb pointed out that “AI is really an umbrella term that encompasses many different technologies.”

In fact, of the 700-plus trends that Webb included in this year’s report, more than 100 are related to AI. “That’s because this is truly the next wave of computing,” she said. “Whether we’re talking about cloud or about image generation or supply chain, this is a lot of what anchors what’s coming next.”

Though much of the current mainstream discussion has focused on conversations between journalists and ChatGPT, Webb said, business leaders should know AI has “major business implications.” A chatbot could, for example, help an enterprise hone its value proposition statement or brainstorm different revenue models.

But that’s a very basic example of what is actually a complex set of technologies. To illustrate more advanced and disruptive uses of AI, Webb pointed to Absci, a startup that calls itself a generative AI drug creation company. It uses similar generative technology that powers ChatGPT and other conversational bots, but Absci leverages it to generate novel molecular designs for creating new biologic drugs. The company says it can build and test millions of AI designs each week—accelerating the experimental cycle so they can go from designs to data in as little as six weeks.

Not long ago, Webb remarked, few people “in the pharmaceutical industry or the scientific research arena would have said, ‘Maybe we can use some of these generative tools to generate millions of new designs for antibodies every single week to see which one might be the best one.’ But here they are doing rapid simulation using this new generative AI tool, at a speed and depth that’s impossible for humans on their own.”

2. A centralized flow of data is more crucial than ever.

The pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation: Enterprises depended on running workloads remotely, so they relied on cloud storage to enable key businesses processes and applications to operate from anywhere.

For those processes to work well, several functions—finance, manufacturing, supply chain, accounting, procurement, project management, compliance, and many more—must be aligned. And when that data isn’t flowing across the organization, that alignment becomes difficult.

That’s why enterprise resource planning (ERP) has become so important. This is software that helps to run core business processes in a single system, with data flowing between departments so the enterprise can adapt to changes easily, scale quickly, and work more efficiently. Artificial intelligence comes into play here as well, with top ERP tools offering built-in machine learning and advanced analytics to provide key insights.

“At Future Today Institute, a lot of the companies that we deal with are still very siloed,” Webb said. “If you can’t see the interconnectedness between what folks are doing, then it’s like looking at the entire world through a pinhole: You’re missing the connections between things, and it’s those connections that matter.”

3. Business leaders must have a solid grasp on the data their organization generates.

Artificial intelligence may once have been the purview of the tech industry, but now, Webb emphasized, leaders in all industries can no longer afford to ignore. Addressing the virtual participants, she said, “Many of you are at midsize or even smaller companies are thinking: We’ve got enough to deal with in the next quarter; we can’t possibly think about advanced AI right now. But you’d be making a mistake.”

So, what to do? Webb recommends starting with a data audit: Figure out what types of data your organization is generating, and what it could generate in the future. Who’s in charge of the data? What metadata might exist and how could that be used?

“These are not sexy questions, but they’re very important—because without the answers, you’re leaving money on the table,” Webb said. “If you don’t know which data you are or could be generating, you’re never going to know what insights you might be able to glean. So, AI is not just about automating; it’s about increasing productivity and expanding your window into all business operations.”

In turn, those answers provide business leaders with a lens through which to look at the current AI landscape. Webb urges them not to be afraid of the technical nature of the field or the mere fact that AI exists. “It’s here, and at this stage, it’s key to understand what AI is and what it can and can’t do, because you need to start formulating a plan for your own future,” she said. “The question becomes, How does our organization not just coexist with AI, but truly benefit from using some of these tools going forward?”

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