Is AI a real benefit in day to day business operations – Part 1

The world of AI has developed at record pace and its impact on the corporate world has been significant. This has been evidenced by technological developments such as ChatGPT and Dall-E image generation. The potential of such technology is so profound that Forbes dubbed 2023 as the year that will define AI and the future of work as we know it. Deloitte has called recent developments as the ‘industrial revolution for human intellect’.

In the first part of 2023, millions embraced the adoption of ChatGPT. In its first five days of launch, Cloudwards confirmed that ChatGPT surpassed 1 million users and subsequently set the world record for the fastest ever growing in platform in January as 100 millions users embraced the technology. In February 2023, ChatGPT reached 1 billion visits and 1.6 billion in March 2023 respectively.

However AI is not new. The last few years has seen AI reshaping the workplace and how humans perform their daily tasks. Back in March, The Washington Post confirmed that ‘Artificial intelligence is increasingly making its way across industries, changing jobs from retail to medicine to marketing’. This is inclusive of financial services industries. Sulabh Soral, chief AI officer at Deloitte expressed that ‘at its most basic form, AI is a software that is able to mimic and generate human behaviours. This includes planning, understanding speech, generating ideas and visuals. The potential opportunities that can arise from scaling this technology is profound’. We have arrived at a moment where AI seems to be at it’s tipping point.

Yet what is potentially problematic about recent AI developments is that whilst rapid tech adoption is good, it simultaneously fuels an ever-changing landscape of mass unknowns and great risks. These early adopters of the technology are pushing the limits with regards to untested ethical, moral and legal boundaries. This is a pivotal time for the ‘industrial revolution for human intellect’. Just like preceding revolutions, the testing of boundaries propels an industry into mainstream, in the same way that the internet did for privacy and communication and Web 3 with regards to decentralisation and ownership.

Business leaders must ask the question as to whether AI is a real benefit in day to day operations? The reality of the matter is that AI developments are a double-edged sword when it comes to business operations, presenting both benefits and risks to organisations through its implementation.