Can Artificial Intelligence Rule the World?

Written by Alexandra Lamb

Did you ever think you would live to see the day that you would be conversing with chatbots about your latest credit card transactions, purchasing your next grocery list from Amazon, or served your favorite coffee by an automated barista that remembers your preferences? Think again, because it is already happening and will continue to happen in a big way. You can now browse for unusual vegetables and organic chips from Wholefoods and access its recipe database to whip up a delicious meal, using artificial intelligence to converse with a robot chef. You can also have daily conversations with Alexa, Amazon’s customizable virtual assistant, about the latest weather forecast, your daily appointments, to playing trivia games and even ordering pizza. You may even be the proud owner of Roomba, the latest robot dust cleaner, which can already map the square footage and dimension of your house for more effective cleaning.

The fact that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are becoming more and more a part of our daily lives just proves that technology has been advancing by leaps and bounds and, unless we want our lives and businesses to be disrupted, we best jump on the bandwagon of technology in order to remain relevant. So, what are your strategies to ensure that you are prepared for disruptive impact and maintain your competitive advantage as a business?

We, at John Clements Consultants, have been responding to the call of technology by bringing in some of the brightest thought leaders and experts in the field of data analytics and artificial intelligence in the past year. Most recently, we held the two-day workshop, Applied Analytics for Competitive Advantage, at the Discovery Primea in Makati City. It was well-attended by around 40 top leaders from various industries, who were curious to find out how they could stay ahead of the technology game. We invited Professors Ikhlaq Sidhu (UC Berkeley’s Sutardja’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology) and Paris de l’Etraz (IE Business School, Spain) to share their research and perspectives on the future of data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning and how these are currently impacting and will continue to impact our different businesses in the years to come.

So, how does all this technology and availability of data impact our businesses? According to Prof. Sidhu, the key to staying ahead in the machine learning era is the proper utilization and analysis of data; whoever applies the better data science and maximizes the leveraging of data will win. Providing insight into the data we collect is critical to understanding our customers’ preferences and, in return, allows us to provide better value-added products and services.

Let’s face it, everything today is data-driven and these data are, subsequently, stored in the cloud. Information is at the very core of every business. We have information on our customers, our products, and our services — and it’s steadily increasing. We can use this data and connect it to our business model. When you have cross validation of data input and outcomes, you get better results. The more data you collect, the more you can train AI, which increases the accuracy of the output. This allows us to respond appropriately and deliver better customer experience.

Companies are creating data streams and are monetizing this data — e.g., Google, Facebook and Amazon; however, at the end of the day, as Prof. Sidhu clearly pointed out, we (humans) still have the advantage of understanding the philosophy of data science and tie it into our business strategies. There is no intelligence, desire, or existence in AI without humans. We have to know what threats we face, look at our opportunities and challenges, connect it with the business strategy and ensure that we do not veer away from our core competencies. We must know what our competitors are doing and recognize what technology can do for us.

It is no longer a question of “if”, but rather of “when”, digital disruption catches up with our businesses. When the time comes, is your business ready for disruption? So many businesses are getting disrupted by technology — Uber, AirBnb, Amazon, Netflix, and Fintechs are all disrupting our traditional businesses. Netflix, for example, predicts the content you like by capturing your viewing patterns. It understands what you like because it has segmented you into hundreds of categories based on the shows you watch.

How can you capitalize on technology to stay relevant with your customers? As Prof. de l’Etraz pointed out, AI is all about prediction. The better you predict what your customers want, the better you can deliver a positive customer experience. How far can predictions go in your industry? The longer you wait, the more likely that AI gains will disappear. Focus on product and service innovation in AI to capture top-line benefits first, then follow it up by establishing your digital transformation strategy.

Digital transformation cannot be in the form of small efforts; it has to be an overall, all-encompassing strategy. You need to find ways to engage in partnerships for your company to scale — partners that have data about your customers. Also, look into startups that already have a platform to host the data you can leverage on. This is what Amazon and Google are doing.

Here are some practical initiatives, recommended by Prof. de l’Etraz, to embark upon in order to jump-start the digital transformation process within your organizations:

• Create an internal data transformation team (DTT).
• Work with an external organization & strategy execution team for global sourcing of innovation trends, startups, and innovation strategy.
• Work with an external technology execution team for data and AI strategies.
• Use the Train the Trainer approach to develop your in-house agile capabilities.
• Create an internal budget to strategically invest in startups and initiatives.
• Keep the DTT lean — work in matrix with silos.
• The DTT reports to the CEO or business line head.

At the end of the day, artificial intelligence will be the new innovation. It’s all about knowing our customers better and using the data we collect in an intelligent way in order to improve the customer experience. And finally, to quote Steve Jobs, one of the greatest technology leaders of our time, “Start with the customer experience, and work backwards using technology.”

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About the author:

Alexandra is the Business Development Director of the John Clements Corporate Learning Division.