01/02/2024

The Evolving Digital Ecosystem: Influences & Impact of the rise and rise of Artificial IntelligenceKey Influences on the Digital Core in a Digitally Disruptive World

The world is in a period of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).  A world with many challenges not least of all from global warming of course and a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report pointed to four significant other risk areas impacting the near-term outlook for our world.  Firstly, a gloomy economic outlook with inflation not coming down but remaining stubbornly high. A world in which price shocks and supply issues arrive with little warning; a world where military conflict is increasing and the associated displacement of people and finally the likely impact of increased regulation specifically in areas such as Climate Change and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

With respect to AI, of course, no one could have escaped the very visible on ongoing global discussion suggesting that we are entering another fundamental technologically disruptive epoque with the opportunities and threats posed by the near-term realities of quantum computing, AI and machine learning.   Even in a post pandemic world, business continues to face unprecedented levels of existing concurrent and potential new disruptors AI being the latest. We are likely to see more unprecedented waves of technology enabled change and AI is likely to be the most significant near-term. 

To navigate this world, businesses will need to operate in a continuous transformation mode, to develop people and capabilities that create hyperagility up, down and across their business to not only continue to respond, but increasingly anticipate the next disrupter (or potential opportunity) and quickly configure itself to mitigate or take advantage.  The technology landscape and the leadership of technology continues to increase in its complexity, pace of development and depth of impact.  In this new age of Artificial Intelligence, there are many factors to consider, many pressures to absorb and businesses that do not understand or fail to engage in the necessary discussions, education and preparations and ones who fail to appropriately invest, are likely to struggle to compete through this rapidly developing period.  There will be many who are feeling exposed and threatened by this level of technological change, including many in the C-suite leading to potentially dysfunctional behaviours all of which will distract from the task in hand of enabling the adaptation of the organisation.  This does not have to be the case. 

There is significant learning for all in the world we now find ourselves in, the most important for executive teams and businesses more broadly is working out how to gel as a team around all of the issues now being presented, recognising all of the learning, challenges and opportunities ahead, both at a personal and organisational level and building a collective, integrated plan around them.  In this new series of blog posts and articles, we’ll be talking more about all of the challenges being faced technically and from a leadership perspective, discussing some real-life experiences and creating a broader discussion about how to navigate what is becoming known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).