How AI Is Driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Why Your Company Needs to Come Along for the Ride

The following is adapted from Data Science For Executives by Nir Kaldero.

If you’re alarmed by the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), you’re not the only one. Many business-people and laypeople feel confused by this incredibly powerful technology and wonder what impact it will have on their lives.

As with many things in life, however, the spoils will go to the bold. AI is already here and its influence is only set to increase. Before long, it will become impossible to ignore. Companies that fail to embrace AI can expect to be outcompeted by those who do.

If you are a business leader, you need to ensure your organization’s survival. The impact of machine intelligence on business innovation is unprecedented, and its immediate adoption is the only path to corporate survival.

AI is no longer a futuristic fantasy or chapter in a computer-science textbook. We are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Now is the time for leaders of companies of all sizes to learn how to employ AI to solve the most critical problems we face in our businesses, economy, society, and environment.

We are living in a new era of wealth of data, and we no longer have the capacity to absorb, much less process, it all. We now need to rely on tools and technologies to extend our intelligence, enabling all this data to be processed in an unbiased fashion to help us make better, smarter decisions.

I believe we are now in what I call the human + machine era: both/and rather than either/or. We will continue to make our own decisions, but these will and must be assisted by the power of technology.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The First Industrial Revolution was about steam and railroads, the Second about electricity, and the Third brought about by the Internet. AI, the basis of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, will completely change the way business is done and companies are run in the next five to ten years, just as the Internet has done in the last ten. The transformation will be bigger than that any previous revolution has brought about. To compete in the new landscape of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, organizations will be required to drive value by leveraging the vast amount of data they already possess with sophisticated machine-intelligence modeling techniques.

Only data- and model-driven companies are likely to survive in the fast-paced climate of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Internet’s Third Industrial Revolution opened the floodgates of connectivity and dramatically increased business globalization through a tremendous influx of data.

Enterprises acquire vast amounts of data and will continue to do so every single day. The next step is for them to learn how to enable and implement machine intelligence technology and tools to capitalize on and leverage this greatly increased data flow, finding the gold nuggets and gemstones still hidden within all this information.

We are in an important time in history. Legacy enterprises must act now to transform themselves into data- and model-driven organizations before it is too late. The competition is growing rapidly, and companies that hesitate to change will see their market share eaten up. These are large businesses — including Fortune 25 companies and their international equivalents — so the transformation is going to take a few years. There is no doubt about their ability to transform, but they must act quickly during this crucial period.

AI Will Augment Human Capabilities, Not Replace Them

We could debate the supposed threat posed by AI endlessly. Certainly, there are numerous tasks currently undertaken by humans that will soon be more effectively performed through AI. Nonetheless, I feel it’s critical to reframe the conversation. As I see it, the purpose of machine intelligence and smart learning systems is to augment — not replace — human intelligence and judgment.

Each and every day, working closely with the world’s largest leading technology companies, I see that this technology’s purpose is to enhance human capability and potential. I believe that AI should and will make all of us better at our jobs and that its benefits will extend to the many, not merely the elite few, across all dimensions of our personal and professional lives.

Although computer scientists have been talking about AI for more than sixty years, machine intelligence is now a reality. Indeed, it is already transforming many businesses. Incumbent corporations must act now, at this crucial time, to understand how to adopt data science and machine learning techniques to radically transform their businesses. They must do this especially by looking at what early adopters of this technology have already done: where and how they have invested, how they have measured their ROI, and how they have refined their strategies.

Ten or fifteen years ago, these early adopters began to leverage machine-intelligence modeling techniques to think about how they could improve their operations and product development, and also to enhance their user and client experiences and journeys. Innovative, data-driven companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple now apply data science and machine intelligence in every part of their businesses. The ROI has been impressive: more than 35 percent increase in revenue and business outcomes. And this is only the beginning.

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For more guidance on how to start the journey to successfully transform your organization to become data- and model-driven enterprise, find Data Science For Executives on Amazon.