Future Ready Digest Vol. 2 No. 7 - 3rd February 2025
Jim Hamill (Dr)
Director at The Future Ready Hub - supporting organisations in becoming future ready for an increasingly volatile, digital and AI world.
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In this edition, the Doomsday Clock is ticking, Higher Education - the next digital dinosaur, OpenAI claims DeepSeek stole its data, an interesting MIT case study on how Colgate-Palmolive is using AI, good for business - but what about the people and societal impact of AI, the hidden costs of partial digital transformation, the AI arms race, improving public sector productivity, data science in an AI world, RAG explained, AI and Microsoft Fabric.
89 seconds to go.
Some have been raising serious questions about higher education's ‘modus operandi’ for over a decade, including the late Clayton Christensen, who stated in 2013 that the sector was on the road to becoming the next Digital Dinosaur (see literature summary here What now for higher education?)
Cardiff’s decision reflects broader challenges in the sector, highlighting the urgent need for future-ready leaders of change.
Seriously? OpenAI is shocked that an AI company would train on someone else's data without permission or compensation.
Via the MIT Sloan Management Review – an interesting case study on how Colgate-Palmolive has strategically deployed Gen AI in two main areas - innovation and marketing content creation. “These are areas with measurable business value bringing together traditional AI and generative AI in ways that weren’t previously possible.”
Via Brian Solis.
Yes, Brian, AI may indeed be “a transformative force shaping a new era in the history of technology, with businesses standing to benefit from the AI revolution due to wide-ranging applications and improved efficiency, an unprecedented opportunity across industries.” But what about the people and societal impact?
An interesting article from the LSE Business Review discusses the geopolitical competition for AI sovereignty – a modern arms race. “With technology executives directly influencing government policies by collaborating with political leaders, the development and deployment of AI systems are now shaping the future of politics, diplomacy, and national security.”
Are we happy with that?
The false security of half measures – “Businesses implementing incomplete digital modernization often perform worse than those using fully legacy systems. Partial transformation creates complexity without efficiency, leading to operational friction and missed opportunities. A holistic approach to maximizing the benefits of digital transformation technologies is required.”
A McKinsey study outlining the potential of public service agencies to increase productivity. “If governments worldwide reached the productivity levels of their leading performers, the impact could generate an estimated $3.5 trillion annually. A comprehensive, systemwide approach is required to enhance government efficiency and outcomes.”
From Forbes Technology Council – How AI has revolutionised analytics and data science by enabling faster decision-making and greater accuracy. The use of AI has now become integral to modern data management processes.
Two articles to enhance your understanding of the “tech” aspect……..
I recommend taking the time to read this article.
RAG is becoming critical to your organisation's ability to leverage the full potential of emerging AI technologies. Simply, it bridges the gap between the extensive pre-trained knowledge contained in large language models (Gen AI) and the precise, up-to-date internal data critical to your business.
“In essence, RAG optimizes the output of a large language model by referencing an authoritative knowledge base outside of its training data sources before generating a response. This approach extends the capabilities of LLMs to specific domains or an organization’s internal knowledge base, all without the need to retrain the model.”
From PwC – the strategic benefits of leveraging Microsoft technologies, such as Fabric and Azure, to support AI-driven transformation.
As always, comments and feedback are very welcome.
Take care.
Jim H