There is no denying that established companies are being disrupted faster than ever before. The Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship* once predicted (in ~2017) that 75% of the S&P 500 will be replaced by 2027. That is a mind-blowing prediction that remains to be seen, but the adoption of AI is at rates we've never seen before so you can't rule it out.
I originally wrote this article in 2017 and have updated it for October 2024.
AI has already been repeatedly acknowledged as one of the most impactful innovations to come along. AI adoption is exploding too. It is well-known that ChatGPT reached 100 million active users in just two months after its launch. It is not an Apples to Apples comparison to make but it took Google 6 to 7 years, and Facebook 4.5 years to reach the same milestone. It took roughly 25 years to sell 100 million PCs. It also took 50-60 years to reach the same milestone for automobiles sold, even with the impactful innovation of assembly line manufacturing by Henry Ford.
Small and Midsize Businesses Could Be Disrupted Also
Small businesses are not immune to this potential disruption either. When you consider that there are approximately 30 million small businesses in the US today and they employ almost half of the US workforce this warrants a further look.
An AI Industrial Revolution?
We are entering a new era of technology innovation. Some frame it as another (4th) industrial revolution. History shows that this has happened three other times.
The 1st industrial revolution (beginning ~1784) was typified by mechanical production, steam power, vaccination, the railroads and telegraph.
The 2nd industrial revolution came in the next century (beginning ~1870) with electrical power, the light bulb, airplanes, automobiles, telephone, phonograph, radio, still / motion picture cameras and film, tabulating systems, antibiotics, semi-conductor, and the advent of the assembly line (mass production).
The 3rd industrial revolution came in the next century (beginning ~1960) with automated production, programmable computers, space travel, transistors, nuclear energy, consumer electronics, video recorders, personal computers, mobile phones, solar energy, and eventually the Internet.
The 4th industrial revolution (now) builds on everything that has come before this but will be remembered for artificial intelligence (AI), flying cars and quantum computing.
With the exception of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press which took centuries for widespread adoption, every impactful invention or innovation happened during these three waves of technology innovation. Take comfort in this pattern of innovation adoption.
Impactful Industrial Revolution Innovations Triggers This Pattern
New industries, products, and services were created and rapid growth and adoption ensued.
Fortunes were made and fortunes were lost.
New jobs were created and outmoded jobs eliminated.
Change inevitably occurred, despite any resistance, to benefit from the new innovation.
The Age of Intelligence
This 4th industrial revolution is being called the “Age of Intelligence”. Data is exploding and flows from every device in unprecedented volumes, variety, velocity and complexity. Traditional analytics and other decision support approaches are unable to fully exploit it's value, driving a need for new innovation in many areas. New business models, a growing digital economy, aging workforce and global skills shortages are all driving this same need for smarter systems, better decisions, and better outcomes in all facets of life.
How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Game
(This section was my point of view in 2017)
We have never seen so many disruptive technologies come along at the same time. It’s an overused cliché but this is a perfect storm of technology-based innovation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is leading the way enabling new business models, new value and benefits. AI is a game changer by itself but when combined with cloud, mobile, social, device sensors, nanotechnology, robotics, drones, 3D printing, everything goes to a whole other level. It's a lot to conceptualize and nearly impossible to fully understand the impact of this revolution on business, jobs and most everything else right now, so let's explore a few areas.
If, previously, you’ve worked as a video rental clerk, travel agent, assembly-line worker, 411 operator, ticketing agent, cashier, bank teller, stock-broker, department store or telephone book advertising salesperson, you likely understand my point.
McKinsey & Company predicted in a 2017 report, that we can expect artificial intelligence technologies to play an increasingly greater role in everyday life. They highlighted that the potential impact on the workplace had, unsurprisingly, become a major focus of research and public concern. That same 2017 report also explored which job roles will or won’t be replaced by machines.
(My updated point of view in 2024)
In the past seven years, AI has continued to emerge as the most significant of all of the technological innovations. It's much bigger than I originally thought. It has already triggered the same Impactful Industrial Revolution Innovations pattern identified above.
Is AI Replacing People?
As for me … I believe the adoption of AI will indeed impact our lives in a big way. It will take some time … and will create new roles/jobs and eliminate the need for others.
I am not old enough to remember when “Computer” was job title and not a machine. I do know that role consisted of people who manually computed and/or counted things and the primary tool was the slide rule. Before that, it was the abacus.
Today, those same people who became “Computers” in the 1950s and 60s are more likely to be Accountants, Financial Planners, Controllers even Programmers today … which by comparison are certainly higher value and higher paid roles.
The Information Age (or 3rd revolution) birthed an entire industry (Information Technology). It impacted corporate structures/strategies/governance and brought us household names like Amazon, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Yahoo and too many government contractors and small businesses to count. It seduced us into wondering what is REALLY possible. At present, Evans Data estimates there are 18.2 million software developers worldwide, a number that is due to rise to 26.4 million by 2019 (a 45% increase).
On the whole, that’s a huge amount of positive change and human advancement.
There will always be doom and gloomers who worry that robots will take their jobs. Sure, some statistics show that a large percentage of all employment roles will be impacted by machines within the next two decades. This impact will be good for some and bad for others.
Is AI Making Life Easier or More Difficult?
It seems to me that history will repeat itself, and the same outcomes will occur again, in both large and small businesses:
Some roles will be eliminated.
Some roles will evolve forward and upward.
Many new roles will be created.
My point is … now is the time to take action and get ahead of this. McKinsey and others have done a good job of detailing the roles and workloads that are most likely to be impacted. I think the more important issue is what are you going to do to make sure your job or company is benefitting from this. You don’t want to be the person left wondering “what happened?”
IBM brought this into the mainstream when cognitive system Watson … beat the best human competitors at Jeopardy! in 2011. That was the starting gun … and the race is on.
Insert Gallop info here
My experience with AI (so far) has taught me the following:
Information is exploding at such a rate that it is impossible to read, assimilate and apply except in small volumes. Technologies to assist us with decision-making are now mandatory.
There is so much new information being generated that it is also impossible for doctors, lawyers or any information based professional to keep up with their professional learning obligations. Do you want a Doctor who is up-to-date on the most recent medical information to treat you or one who hasn’t kept up on the medical literature?
Too much information is creating numerous bottlenecks to decision-making and process execution. Many information based processes are actually getting slower. Resulting delays can cause more errors.
Any situation where a human has to read, research, explore, find and or learn new information (before making a decision) is ripe to benefit from artificial intelligence or other new decision support tools.
This is particularly the case when unstructured text or documents are involved. This form of data is typically “dark” and not easily locatable. It also takes longer to learn from text-based information.
There can often be so much information (hundreds of pages, many documents) that the required time to read and assimilate further bottlenecks decisions from being made … exacerbating the problem.
If video or audio is involved, one can spend countless hours looking/listening for snippets of relevant content. The time invested to reward equation is so poor that most people just skip video/audio altogether when looking for information.
Net-net … any situation where human expertise/knowledge is being applied (regardless of information type) could probably benefit from a system that makes cognitive (AI) assistance available. These systems observe, reason, apply, recommend and learn from outcomes … eventually optimizing those same outcomes as guided by humans. They don’t get tired, go on vacation, have a bad day or introduce personal bias and emotion … typically things that subvert optimal decisions and outcomes.
The era of cognitive computing (or Artificial Intelligence if you prefer) is here now. Like disruptions of the past, there will be winners and losers. Robots and artificial intelligence based tools will certainly transform the nature of work. I personally think for the better.
But what are you doing about it?
Footnote * = Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship was acquired in 2022 by Verhaert Masters In Innovation
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