Re-Imagining Business with AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) IS the biggest thing happening in tech right now. We track a lot of trends, and in my role, as Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, we look at everything that’s happening. Of all the trends I have observed, AI is the alpha trend and will cause more dramatic changes in business and society than any technology trend we’ve experienced. Surprising to some, AI isn’t new – it’s a 60-year-old technology. In the last 5-7 years there have been new techniques that have given AI new life such as machine learning, computer vision, and advanced analytics. There have also been numerous advances in computing power combined with the availability of data through mobility and IoT that have sparked this new wave in AI.

At Accenture we call our artificial intelligence business, Applied Intelligence, intentionally because we believe Applied Intelligence represents the reality that humans working with machines are developing new forms of intelligence and applying them to business and societal problems. It’s our way to help companies bring together data, automation, machine learning, advanced analytics and AI technologies to create intelligent insights, and action, at scale.  And, to get real business value from these new technologies now. The result will be what we call “re-imagining business”:

1. New jobs will be created;
2. New services will be created; and,
3. New ways of working will emerge that are all enabled by AI.

We have seen what can happen over the course of just a few years and there are more changes coming in the next 10 years. The anticipation of those changes has led to several questions around how AI will re-imagine business. Re-imagining business is not a thought exercise. It’s about applying intelligence – yours, your people’s, machines and more – to fundamentally change your business. It’s about re-imagination today, not tomorrow. This re-imagination of business is underway right now, and anyone who has not already begun is already behind. Our research shows:

• AI has the potential to boost rates of profitability by an average of 38 percentage points and could lead to an economic boost of US$14 trillion in additional gross value added (GVA) by 2035.
• Artificial Intelligence could double annual economic growth rates by 2035 by changing the nature of work and spawning a new relationship between human and machine.
• The impact of AI technologies on business is projected to boost labor productivity by up to 40 percent by fundamentally changing the way work is done and reinforcing the role of people to drive growth in business.

AI has been given new life and we are not only re-imaging how it will work for business, but we are also re-imagining the role of people.  AI at its core combines intelligent technology with human ingenuity. Probably the most dramatic change that AI is driving for people is the nature of work.  We call this new view Collaborative Intelligence. And collaborative intelligence is very important because this is about how we take the best capabilities of a person and the best capabilities of software or machine or AI and put that together to create a new type of job.  We call this the “Missing Middle.”

The idea is that there’s something missing from the discussion around AI today and it’s what’s happening in the middle between humans and machine. We tend to think about what humans are good at, which is communication, emotion, imagination, generalization, and so forth. And then you think about what machines are good at -- memorization, prediction, transaction, and more. There’s a lot of opportunity in that area in the middle and the discussion that has been missing is about how do you put humans and technology together to do new things and create new capability together. That’s what we’re characterizing as the “Missing Middle.”

All these advancements are connected and will change the way we work and solve business problems. AI will also re-imagine society, in how we use it to solve social issues, and in how we apply it responsibly. Responsible AI is necessary for AI to come together across business, people and society and be successful.

At the recent WIRED25 Summit, I described our Applied Intelligence business and how it supports all of the aforementioned advancements. There was no better place to talk about the last 25 years of technology, and the next 25 years when we will see epic change driven by AI. The Information Age has brought us to where we are today. The next period that will define our future and change the world is what I call the “Era of (Re)imagination,” and it’s already here.