The disruptive impact of GenAI, and the role of the CEO
Harry Goddard
CEO Deloitte Ireland | GenAI Leader @ Deloitte NSE | Founding Member @ Chapter Zero Ireland | Co-chair BITCI Leaders Group on Social Inclusion | Member Balance for Better Business Review Group
I attended #GoogleCloudNext last week in Las Vegas. #GenAI as a major disruptive force and has become part of every client conversation I have. I wanted to attend the conference in part to listen to one of the world’s leading innovators share their perspectives, to take a look at the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology as they demoed new product launches, but also - frankly - to see who else would be there.?
I started my career as a software developer and attended many technology conferences earlier in my career. In those days the latest version of an operating system or database was a big deal. All of the audiences were techies and any executives were generally IT Managers.?
Today it’s completely different. The conference key note featured the anticipated new product innovations - many of which were remarkable. But it also featured contributions from the CEO’s of major organisations including : Goldman Sachs, Mercedes Benz, Uber and Paolo Alto networks. All of whom spoke knowledgeably and eloquently about how this technology was advancing their businesses.?
In my discussions with the many executives and business leaders during last week, some of the topics that emerged included:
? a recognition that this is the first technological (industrial?) revolution where the principal constraint to adoption is an organisation’s risk appetite and capacity for change
? the market expectations to adopt to this trillion dollar opportunity versus an organisation’s ability to change and / or risk appetite can generate a tension between the executive and the board which must be carefully managed
? GenAI has become a productivity assistant more quickly than expected but will take longer to drive real product or services innovation (the hallucinations are real, although there are already innovations which start to provide greater safe guarding against this)
? different sectors are at different stages of the hype cycle. Sectors with large volumes of non personal, well organised data (such as life sciences) are leading the way in the adaption of the technology
? an organisations internal ability to access, structure, organise and manage their data is critical
?? hosting data in the cloud is a fundamental requirement for scale and computing power
Finally - while much of the discussion is about organisational enablement and innovation, there are significant opportunities across society for GenAI. As leaders, we must ensure it doesn’t create larger societal gaps and that we invest to “raise the floor” as well as to “raise the ceiling”. This point came across best when discussing the potential for GenAI in the school room. Imagine a curriculum and content which is tailored for the students ability & learning stage, and supported by an in person teacher and technology.?
As a business leader it was sufficient - and often necessary - to rely on technology experts in our business to inform and enable both the executive and the organisation on the role of technology. GenAI has changed that paradigm and we all need to understand the potential, opportunities and risks of this new capability. Wave one will be about organisational productivity and learning; wave two will be innovation and market disruption. We all need to prepare.?
At Deloitte we are looking at ways to support our clients prepare. Our latest report outlines three roles enterprise CEOs need to play to achieve success with GenAI. Download the full report here and subscribe to our CEO series: ?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.