Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been garnering a lot of attention worldwide. Many companies have been incorporating AI in their respective service or manufacturing domains and shaping the future.
By Guru Prasad Sowle
Artificial Intelligence is a constellation of many different technologies that are potentially working together to enable and facilitate machines and non-human beings, to comprehend and learn, with levels of intelligence that match human beings, maybe that is why it seems as though everyone’s definition of Artificial Intelligence is different. It’s important to note that AI isn’t just one thing. It’s a collection of multiple technologies, like machine learning, and natural language processing are all part of the canvas each one is evolving along its own track. And when combined with data analytics and automation, it can help businesses achieve their goals. Whether it is in the domain of customer service, or for example, optimizing the supply chain.
Every day we encounter AI-driven applications and digital assistants that perform specific tasks or a set of related functions. These illustrations show how prevalent AI is in concrete ways. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a luxury in today’s quickly changing technological world; it is now a necessity for organisations in all sectors, including the public and private spheres. Globally, it has an impact on social, economic, and technological spheres, continuously increasing the value it creates for a range of businesses.
A paradigm change occurred in the development of technology investments between the late 1980s and the early 1990s. Estimating ROI was extremely difficult. So now we are on the cusp of another tech revolution driven by AI. In contrast, estimating ROI is pretty easy.
Thanks to the proliferation of data and advancements in cloud processing and computing capability, enormous volumes of information, including hitherto untapped dark data, are now available in a way that has never been possible. A competitive advantage and quick responses to market developments are made possible for businesses thanks to this data pool, which encourages the development of AI.
There’s also an exponential impact on the growth and companies that scale successfully with Artificial Intelligence and are expected to see a potential of 2x to 3x return on their investments in Artificial Intelligence, compared to those who are still in the pilot stage of adapting AI. The power of growth Artificial Intelligence provides is simply too compelling for any organization to ignore or even push down on priority.
Hence, the message is very clear. Artificial Intelligence is here to drive organizations, the economy and a whole new wave of innovation, cutting across the public sector, private sector, technology, business, government, defence, and several other sectors.
AI has the potential to revolutionise society, as demonstrated by its capacity to encourage exponential growth. Companies that successfully grow with AI are anticipated to have returns on their investments that are two to three times better than those businesses that are still in the early phases of adoption. Due to AI’s enticing development trajectory, which crosses the public and private sectors, technology, business, government, defence, and many other areas, every organisation needs to employ it.
Looking ahead to 2024, key trends in AI to reshape the technological landscape are:-
- AI-driven business models are undergoing rapid commercialization, leveraging predictive capabilities transfused with historical data and human feedback. This transition empowers AI to not only augment existing business models but also make predictions autonomously, revolutionizing industries like business analytics, intelligence, and security.
- Autonomous back office models – Artificial Intelligence is likely to empower and drastically transform back office models providing it with enormous automation that can make a big difference in the overall scheme of things. For example, when the internet opened up close to Y2K, back office models went through a substantial change. There was a fee-for-service mindset at several back offices. Turned into profit centres. We are now going multiple steps beyond that transformation with automation-driven business systems that will have capabilities that allow systems themselves to self-execute and self-regulate towards company goals. In the name of efficiency with generative AI, a wide range of new tasks become possible to automate towards this goal. Models are adaptable and flexible and are able to process huge volumes of data from several sources actually organize data into different classes for editing to summarize and also enable new content creation
- Responsible AI – Responsible Artificial Intelligence comes with a tag of responsibility. Lawmakers all over the world have typically been slow to respond to emerging technologies and quite understandably in recent years, there have been various examples of Silicon Valley’s move fast and breaking things approach, where a company quickly enters the market and worries about sorting the situation with lawmakers years after that there are fears of misuse of AI or neglect surrounding its potential to manipulate people’s behaviour, using the information to cause mass unemployment, or even to pose an existential threat to humanity. There’s a need to integrate security measures right from inception. As opposed to considering a post-mortem. We need to anticipate vulnerabilities and integrate robust defences, which will be quite vital in the Artificial Intelligence era because of its enormous software diversity and complexity, developers can craft software that’s intrinsically secure. However, the responsibility of risk mitigation falls on users due to legacy code, and vulnerabilities necessitating frequent patches. This reactive approach isn’t always sufficient and underscores the need for organizations to prioritize proactive cybersecurity. In the given environment today, AI brings a new set of variables in terms of threats and these themes are familiar without addressing these threats or addressing the problem, where it begins, enterprises will continue to run the risk of sinking more investment and resources into cybersecurity.
- Digital sovereignty – In the context of the digital revolution, data is becoming increasingly paramount in the age of emerging technologies as generative technologies are trained by scraping the web to compile Massive Datasets for their models; Questions arise about who truly owns controls and the rights to the data. Data ownership will continue to be a moot point as the world embraces artificial intelligence.
Courts and lawmakers will catch up with the new capabilities of generative AI. Organizations are questioning how to protect their data and key aspects of their digital identity. Incentivizing them to set up infrastructure and deploy productions that preserve digital autonomy and prevent third parties from training on data security, has always been a challenge in the technology world more so in the world of artificial intelligence, as we will be dealing with a complex set of myriad applications at any point in time and enormous volumes. of data that has never been seen before. Therefore, security, protecting data and establishing ownership of data will need razor-sharp focus for organizations from the government at all levels.
In a nutshell, AI is a force reshaping industries and economies and not just a toy for show and tell. Advances in AI are poised to impact multiple sectors including core sectors. Like aerospace, defence, healthcare, semiconductors a host of other emerging economies sectors the world is on the threshold of yet another digital revolution, as we all know change is constant and so will Artificial Intelligence.
In fact, Generative AI could raise GDP by 7 per cent. The impact of AI is likely to have a major score, on Social, Economic, Health and several sectors of the Economy of countries across the Globe. With the advancement of AI tools, the expectation is there could be a $ 7 trillion addition to Global GDP in a ten-year period. Significantly, one of the most looked at numbers in any economy, is ‘eMPLOYMENT’; a new wave of AI, is also likely to have a major impact on employment around the world.
Shifts in employment opportunities could perhaps enable more exposure to automation than what we are seeing now. It may also be noted, that at any stage of automation or technology adoption from several decades, jobs did not necessarily go away, yet the nature of jobs changed! We are likely to see a similar pattern with the advent of AI, we are on the threshold of a set of whole new possibilities and a progressive economy integrated by a new wave of job creation.
Not to mention, AI has dominated the headlines in the commercial world! International markets have seen a surge of investments into AI and this is also corroborated by capital markets, including Nasdaq.
AI has also been a strategic initiative in the Indo-US collaboration space. With the change in the geopolitical situation, America is seeking AI partnerships with Indian companies. Given the vast talent pool and intellectual capital in India, this is an opportune moment for India to pivot, with its AI capabilities.
Also Read: The growing need for security at the Edge
Guru Prasad Sowle is the founder member and Director (Indo–US affairs) at Indus International Research Foundation (IIRF).
