Contents
Employeeless?
Know how to make your business succeed in the Age of AI
First published by Per Damgaard Husted 2020 Copyright 2020 by Per Damgaard Husted
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First edition.
Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI). Do you use it in your business? Maybe the technology is something you know of but have never used it. Perhaps you already have some experience with your own AI projects, or with services you use that are made with AI.
The media is full of stories about Silicon Valley companies using AI to create something new and revolutionary almost every day. Philosophers discuss whether artificial intelligence will be smarter than us at some point. And there are continuous predictions about the Forth industrial revolution that will be driven by AI
So, there are lots of different people who have options on how AI can become significant on many levels of our daily lives. But do you know exactly what AI could mean for the way your business is run?
It may well be that the AI-driven changes will be insignificant in your industry. That technology is not going to drive change on how your business could be run. But how can you know if that's right in your case? Imagine if your industry is the next transformation case, without you realizing it and therefore not acting on it.
We have seen technological change processes before. The Internet and the Digital Transformation are the latest examples. The overall dynamics are always the same. The premises for how you run your business are challenged. Those who understand how to play with the new premises winthose who do not, lose.
But when you dig a little deeper, we also know that not all companies feel the changes the same way. The changes will happen in different places of your business and will occur with different levels of strength.
Let's take the product you are currently engaging with as an examplenamely this book.
You either read the book as a physical book or as an e-book. Or maybe you don't read it. You could have got it as an audiobook. You may have borrowed the book from the library, purchased the book at the bookstore, online, or maybe it was available to you as part of an online subscription service that you have signed up for. And you probably got interested in the book because you read a review of it on the web somewhere.
It is still possible to read a review of a book in a physical newspaper, then go to a bookstore and buy it, as you would have done in the old days, before the year 2000. It's just not the most typical way to find and read new books anymore.
So, the publishing industry is an excellent example of a sector that has been transformed by digital technologies. Everything has changed. The way books are produced, the way customers read them, the way books are marketed, how they are distributed, and the underlying business models.
All this has happened because Internet technologies have changed the premise of how knowledge in the form of books can be distributed. Every other industry has also seen Internet-driven change. But that has happened on different premises. Of course, some changes are similar across industries, but many are also unique to their particular situation.
And now AI is coming.
I think many feel they are back to where the Internet journey began to emerge. You have a clear sense that something is going to happen. And it has the potential to be huge.
But what, and how, can be very abstract and difficult to grasp on a more specific level. What should we do so that AI starts to become an asset for us? What do we need to do, to understand the technology and work with it in ways that can create new value for us and our customers?
This book is written for you if you have such considerations. It is written for people who would like to understand how Artificial Intelligence can be used to create growth in their businesses.
A part of your job is properly to make sure that your business is taking full advantage of its technological potential. So, you can make the right management decisions on how to use technology. And that includes AI.
You know Artificial Intelligence from the media's success stories. But you are looking for a basic understanding of what the technology is, and what it can do for you and your business.
You want to make sure you don't miss out on opportunities to make your business better. So, you can find the areas that could benefit the most from AI.
I also imagine that you have been thinking about the possible strategic changes that AI could drive. Is your industry the next publishing industry? Is AI an area that redefines how you conduct your business, or is it merely a sporadically used technology that you can use in a few operational tasks? You want to understand the potential so that you can act with the right level of leadership attention.
They are precisely the desires, reflections and considerations that the book is written to help you to address.
The book seeks to give you an understanding of what AI is, why technology can be used in your business, how you can use it, and where it makes the most sense for you to have your focus. Not on a technical level but seen in a business context.
The key here is that AI creates value. Your business creates value. You will get an understanding of why the two things are interconnected and what it means to you and your business.
It is not a technical book, and it is not a quick fix book that gives 50 tips on how to get started on an AI project tomorrow. It is a book that seeks to provide you with the understanding you need to unite the core of your business with the new AI brings to the table. The common denominator is value creation.
AI will challenge your value creation, and it can unfold on many levels and many dimensions of your business. In operational terms, you can solve your problems and your tasks differently with AI. Strategically, AI has the potential to disrupt the way you create value and could redefine the goals you have with your business.
The book helps you understand why you can work differently with AI and how to uncover where it makes sense for you to start. Part of this means getting tools to see where you can use the technology best in your business.
You cannot speak of such fundamental changes as AI has a potential to drive without also addressing leadership. The potential depth of the change alone requires a leadership effort, but as you will see, that is the least important leadership aspect.
