I am sometimes asked, if we could compare the cloud transition to now ongoing AI journey. It is easy to say, that the leap to the cloud certainly wasn’t made with the snap of a finger either! It has been a steady journey of the last 20+ years, with the past 10 years being clearly the real transition. Now that most organizations are already in the cloud, and if we think AI the “next phase”, I see utilization of AI as a lower-hanging fruit.
Compared to the transition to the cloud, the new opportunities AI offers are surely more concrete in many ways: Whether it’s about automation, customer service, or collaboration, the impact on daily work or routines can be very tangible. As we see, the early phase GenAI solutions are primarily on bot-type customer service or search style of applications, or assisting solutions for creative processes.
When we move forward to developing and producing new services and applications, the impact grows exponentially, achieving rapid changes in competitive situations. Once you can shorten development phase of new business solution, you can create significant competitive advantage and/or save cost on the development! Again, comparing to what cloud enabled: Regarding data, cloud enabled the development of complex data platforms in a remarkably cost-effective way and without upfront investments. AI can do the same for service and product development: Allow rapid development and experimentation without first spending money and resources. Once you recognize the business opportunities, then increase the investment to maximize the impact!
Majority of the organizations are well on way on utilizing latest AI and data capabilities, with emphasis on AI experiments. Not all the experiments live to make it to the production, and that is absolutely fine! Important thing is to keep on innovating and aiming for next big thing. You don´t always score the hit song with the first try, but as your team develops, people become more familiar with available opportunities, the more likely the hit will come your way!
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