The (Still Forthcoming) AI Business Revolution
In 2023, the tech world embraced AI, though the larger business world seemed to hesitate due to unanswered concerns around inaccuracies, misuse, data privacy, and intellectual property. An AI arms race produced many rollouts, including a barrage of single-point apps based on Open AI's ChatGPT-4. Google made its own announcements, not the least of which was Google Gemini that appears to have been overhyped.
Toward the end of 2023, Dale Bertrand, CEO of Boston-based content marketing agency Fire & Spark, surveyed approximately 40 business owners to identify their sentiments around AI. According to Bertrand, business owners reported themselves to be "completely overwhelmed by the number of AI tools on the market.” They went on to say that “while they see AI as a way to accelerate their team's results, they are deeply concerned about AI introducing bias, legal liability and inaccuracies into their workflows."
Despite the concerns, some professions seemed to embrace new AI capabilities more than others last year. According to a McKinsey study entitled, The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI's breakout year, "The most commonly reported uses of AI tools were in marketing, sales, product and service development, and service operations." For all of its usefulness, the general sentiment amongst individual AI adopters toward the end of 2023 was that while great potential exists, AI mainly helped professionals save time on the edges, not necessarily within their core functional areas.
While AI magic impressed us with its ability to enhance our knowledge, create (artificial) lifelike images, replicate us on video, and produce synthesized copies of our voices, the full promise of AI seems yet to have been realized, particularly for businesses. The low impact is undoubtedly due to the technology's infancy and limited integration thus far. In 2023, AI's potential remained greater than its actual usefulness, and corporate policies had yet to support widespread AI usage in the workplace.
Three Predictions for 2024
Considering the current trajectory, along with the significant capital investments made in AI in 2023, there is no doubt that AI technology will continue to evolve rapidly and change the way we work.
Legal cases brought last year (like the one filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft) along with impending governmental oversight will ultimately help clarify guardrails, allowing more businesses to embed AI into their operations prudently. According to Forrester's Predictions 2024, "Generative AI will seep into consumers' lives. 60% of skeptics will use (and love) generative AI — knowingly or not."
Beyond the statements above, I want to offer the following three predictions for 2024:
Personal AI assistants will become commonplace. In November 2023, Open AI launched Custom GPTs, making it possible for subscribers to use their own datasets to train AI chatbots.
AI-based search will replace SEO (Search Engine Optimization). In May 2023, Google Announced Search Generative Experience (SGE) and has since expanded its usage in response to search queries.
The further proliferation of deep fakes and synthesized voice will mean that information sources will be as important as the data they present.
* As the fog of AI hype begins to lift, 2024 promises a clearer view of AI's actual business impact. While 2023 was a year of experimentation and learning, the road ahead appears paved with practical applications. Personal assistants fueled by custom datasets will empower employees, and AI-powered search will cut through the information overload, streamlining decision-making. Though challenges like deep fakes and data privacy persist, their very presence will underscore the importance of critical thinking and information sourcing now and into the future.
*Authors note: The final paragraph (above) was written by Google Bard. The rest of the article was 100% Human-generated.
