I completely made up my headline, by the way.
A quick glance at the development of mobile business shows that forecasts are almost never 100% precise. Who back in early 2007, after the unveiling of the first iPhone, would have accurately predicted the staggering rise of smartphones and apps? Who would have forecasted the billions that could be made in this industry? Who would have foreseen the Apple-Google duopoly? Once again we find ourselves at the start of a new development with barely any concept of the full potential. We don’t know what AI applications will ultimately be capable of, nor are we aware of their limitations. We can’t tell what implications AI will have on society.
At the moment, the generative AI landscape is more of a rough sketch than a detailed roadmap. Applications are disappearing as fast as new ones are appearing. Today’s revolution is tomorrow’s state of the art – or a wrong turn that is quickly forgotten. But that doesn’t mean that businesses can ignore the issue until the market has settled down. This kind of attitude jeopardises competitiveness. With a steady hand on the tiller, business leaders need to navigate their enterprises through this uncertain future. They must create a culture of curiosity and learning rather than putting their faith in a specific scenario or solution. Openness, experimentation and an appetite for risk are all part of any AI project. Businesses that don’t embrace these qualities will miss out on the chance to really understand and make use of the technology’s opportunities and risks.
