Demystifying AI: Part 3
“We’re on the edge of the golden era of AI. Recent advancements have surprised even the optimists in the field” – Jeff Bezos
GenAI presents ‘once in a generation’ opportunities to rethink how we work, leverage intelligent automation across our business, and free workers from mundane, repetitive tasks to focus on higher value-added activities. Collectively, these new capabilities will change the ‘way we work’ in foundational ways, with significant implications for bottom-line operating results.
Get ready for massive productivity improvements
Whether it’s writing a high-impact client communication, providing world-class customer support across dozens of languages and timezones, or cutting the time to develop your next break-through software solution in half, GenAI is going to significantly accelerate the pace of value delivery. 2023 was a foundational year for GenAI, as people worked to understand its foundational capabilities and various use cases. 2024 is the year where GenAI solutions, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, or Zoom AI, are going to be embedded into the basic way we work.
Entire business functions will be transformed
Areas like Customer Support, Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), and Software Development are likely to look very different in the future. Companies are rapidly adopting GenAI-enabled support capabilities to provide high-quality, automated customer support solutions at a fraction of today’s costs. Common FP&A tasks, such as data collection and normalization, forecasting, and detailed reporting will be largely automated, with dynamic, interactive capabilities. Software Development is already seeing massive productivity gains from platforms like GitHub’s Co-Pilot. These new capabilities are likely to fundamentally change the nature of work and staffing needs in a wide range of corporate functions.
Early adopters will see the impact directly in their ‘bottom line’
The good news is that organizations that successfully embed GenAI into their core ways of working will see cost savings and operating efficiencies translate directly to higher profit margins. Those improved operating margins free up capital and capacity to invest more deeply in innovation and can contribute to a ‘virtuous cycle’ of differentiated performance.
Late adopters may struggle to keep up…
On the flip side, organizations that are slow to adopt GenAI capabilities are likely to find themselves at a distinct disadvantage in terms of delivery pace and cost structure. If not quickly addressed, these structural competitive headwinds can have significant implications for their long-term prospects.
What We’re Seeing in Practice
- Most companies are still in ‘experiment mode’: While there are pockets of applied GenAI already driving operational efficiencies in industry, most efforts were still in ‘proof of concept’ or pilot mode at the end of 2023. As teams are working through specific use cases, solving for domain specific needs, and addressing security and compliance requirements, 2024 will be a year of action and scaling.
- Boards and analysts are expecting results in 2024: There is growing pressure from Boards and external analysts to begin seeing signs of GenAI-enabled operational efficiency and effectiveness in 2024. 2024 may still be a net-investment year when it comes to GenAI, but external observers are looking for a clear trajectory for increased earnings.
- Commercially-available solutions will lead the way in 2024: Though custom-GenAI solutions will require time and a fair amount of creative engineering for most companies, commercially available solutions like Microsoft 365 Co-Pilot, Salesforce Einstein and ZoomAI are ready to drive efficiencies across your business today. Other solutions, like ServiceNow’s GenAI-enabled platform are poised to drive significant transformation, but need to be customized to your business model and fine-tuned with your data and best practices.
- Companies need to ‘lean-in’ on adoption support to see the benefits: ‘Build it and they will come’ definitely does not apply to broad-based GenAI adoption. To see significant margin improvements from your GenAI efforts, you’ll need to clearly communicate the value prop to your workforce, provide simple adoption aids, and carve time out for your team members to learn new skills and ways of working.
Buckle-up, things are getting ready to accelerate…
GenAI is going to further accelerate the pace of business and place a premium on the ability to leverage these new capabilities, holistically across your business, to drive measurable operating efficiencies and margin improvements. There are a lot of moving parts, and you’ll need to prioritize which use cases to tackle first. The good news is there are clear benefits to be captured in 2024 that can help build and sustain momentum for your GenAI adoption efforts, and make a real difference to your bottom line.
Please click below to explore the next 2 blogs in the ‘Demystifying GenAI’ series.
- Delivering Compelling Customer Experiences with GenAI
- Your Team: Smarter, Better & Faster with GenAI
To learn more about how Accelerated Innovation can help your company develop their GenAI vision and get started on their journey, Contact us to set up a phone call.
