Proper Adoption Of AI Requires A Fundamental Change In Culture

Forbes

5 days ago

AI arguably represents the most fundamental technological change since the arrival of early ... More mainframe computers.
For months now, there has been almost constant coverage of AI and the potentially transformative role it could play in fields as wide-ranging as professional services and healthcare. But in recent weeks that attention seems to have intensified, as even the political classes wake up to the possible impact. On consecutive days last week, for example, the Financial Times carried opinion articles suggesting that, first, politicians must overcome their insecurity over technology matters and make a significant contribution to the debate over future developments, and, second, that they needed to be aware of the ramifications if anything like the predicted numbers of white-collar job losses come to fruition.
Now, it is, of course, possible that this is all over-dramatic and that the AI revolution will, like the industrial revolution before it, create all kinds of jobs that we are now only just beginning to imagine. It could even be that the power of AI is being overstated. The cultural commentator Ted Gioia, for one, seems to think so. In a just-published column, he suggests that 'growing AI resistance is forcing companies to reconsider their bot mania.' Moreover, he cites a Gartner report that predicts that 40% of AI agent programs will be cancelled before 2027.
Wishful thinking (Gioia is a longstanding critic of what he sees as AI's detrimental effect on culture) or not, it seems that the adoption of the technology could be a less than smooth process. Earlier this year, a study by the networking and security company Cisco found 'a paradox among CEOs.' While 4 in 5 recognized AI's potential benefits and almost all planned to integrate AI into their operations, many feared gaps in their knowledge would hinder decisions in the boardroom (74%) and stifle growth (58%) – risking missed opportunities and falling behind competitors. Another study, by the professional services firm EY, suggested that companies were racing ahead to implement AI while not putting in place sufficient safeguards against the risks involved.
What the survey identifies as a gap between senior executives' concerns about adherence to responsible AI principles and those of consumers in general is potentially serious because it will only feed into the sorts of worries outlined by the opinion formers in the FT and elsewhere. Much of this debate centres on whether AI is seen as very much a cost-saving exercise through replacing people with machines or whether — as many proponents increasingly emphasize — it is a complement that enables humans to do better work and so become more productive. With rising levels of unemployment among young graduates causing increasing alarm, there are fears that the former scenario is in the ascendancy.
Experts in the field, such as Erica Orange of the futurist consulting firm The Future Hunters and Pascal Bornet, a member of the Forbes Technology Council, are attempting to redress the balance with books like AI and the New Human Frontier and Irreplaceable. But, as David De Cremer, author of The AI-Savvy Leader, points out, many AI projects continue to be what he calls 'tech-driving-tech transformations' with people valuing AI's computational prowess over human understanding.
It is possible that these caveats are contributing to some over-valuations of businesses centered on AI and that we may be in the midst of something like the dotcom bubble of earlier this century. But Steve Garnett, a former senior executive with Oracle, Siebel Systems and Salesforce who is now an active investor in technology businesses, believes that, rather than being overhyped, the AI revolution is 'if anything underhyped.'
Indeed, he is so convinced that this is something different that he has stopped investing in traditional software businesses and is instead focusing on AI. While acknowledging that there is 'some frothiness in there' and that companies just saying they are adopting AI does not really make them AI-focused, he insists that what came to wider prominence with the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November 2022 represents a significant departure from what has come before. 'We have had four decades of incremental technology,' he said in an interview earlier this month, pointing to customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and various human resources applications. While introducing fundamental changes to how organizations operated, he argued that they were not sufficiently wide in scope for the board and senior executives other than those closely involved in IT to become involved.
On the other hand, the technology seemingly becoming more sophisticated by the week was 'a digital labour revolution,' he said. As such, the board and the senior executive team could not afford not to be involved. As the person responsible for motivating the human workforce, the HR director would obviously need to have a view on how AI agents would be integrated, while the chief executive and the chief financial officer would be concerned with costs and assessing the risks that that EY report indicated were receiving insufficient attention at present. At the very least, both the executive team and the board need training in how this technology works and what it has the potential to do. But — mindful of what has happened in the past to companies that failed to respond to change quickly enough — Garnett is urging them to see the need to redesign their processes and indeed in some cases their products and services if they are not to be left behind.
With so many factors — including cyber-security concerns, use of data and how to prevent AI agents going rogue — to be considered, it looks like nothing short of a fundamental cultural change will be required.