Gerard Grant, TCS. Image: Clive Wasson
As AI continues to make headlines, company executives need to start preparing comprehensive strategies to use it effectively and safely.
There has been a huge amount of talk around the evolution of AI and automation over the last two years, with every day bringing a new story about investments, advancements and potentials.
But amidst all that noise, how do business leaders feel about AI right now? Do they have strategies in place to respond to these transformations? What are their biggest concerns?
In early 2024, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) conducted a global survey through its Thought Leadership Institute.
The survey heard from 1,300 CEOs and senior executives from companies spanning 12 industries and 24 countries around the world. It aimed to gain insight into the state of AI adoption and its impact on businesses.
The survey suggested that while many corporate leaders see the value of investing in AI, most lacked a cohesive strategy around how exactly to implement it or how to measure its success.
While almost 60pc of respondents said they believe AI’s impact on business will be greater or equal to that of smartphones, 72pc said they need better KPIs to measure the success of AI implementations.
Gerard Grant, director of strategic initiatives at TCS Ireland, said the gap between using AI to increase revenue and using it to transform business comes down to the difference between short-term focus and long-term focus as well as risk aversion.
“Many companies focus on immediate and measurable benefits. AI applications can quickly boost sales and operational efficiency, leading to immediate revenue gains. While transforming a business model with AI requires a long-term vision, significant investment and a willingness to embrace change,” he told SiliconRepublic.com.
“Companies often prefer incremental improvements over radical changes. Incremental improvements through AI can show clear return on investment, which is easier to justify to stakeholders and shareholders. Transformative changes, however, come with uncertainties and potential disruptions that can be difficult to manage.”
He said in order to bridge this gap, companies need to foster a culture of innovation, build organisational capabilities and have a long-term vision in order to sustain transformative initiatives.
Risks of AI implementation
While AI provides a potential treasure trove of possibilities, particularly when it comes to effectively using data, business leaders must tread carefully when it comes to risks around data privacy and ethical implications.
While the advancements of generative AI have been consistently in the news, so too have the setbacks major tech companies are facing when it comes to data use. Most recently, Meta paused plans to train its large language models using public content following intensive discussion with the Irish Data Protection Commission, while OpenAI’s ChatGPT was targeted in an Austrian privacy complaint.
To combat this, Grant said companies must invest in data governance frameworks that ensure data quality, integrity and compliance with privacy regulations, as well as robust data security measures and regular audits.
“Controls are critical,” he said. “Data privileges may need to be extended or expanded to get the full value across ecosystems. However, this brings inherent risks of unintentional data transmission and data not being used for the purpose intended, so organisations must ensure strong controls and platforms that can highlight and visualise anomalies that may require attention.”
From an ethical standpoint, concerns around biased decision-making are not new. In 2018, Amazon was forced to scrap it’s AI-based recruiting tool when it was shown to discriminate against women. And in the US, predictive policing algorithms have come under fire for racial profiling – not to mention the fact that a 2023 investigation also found it to be terrible at its job of predicting crimes.
So, how can leaders take all of these concerns into account and still use AI to transform their businesses?
“Understanding the base dataset used to build the AI’s understanding of the problem and the learning and decision-making protocols is important to ensure that bias doesn’t enter the system at the nascent stages of development,” said Grant.
“Enterprises must be courageous around shutting down automation and AI models that while showing some short-term gain may cause commercial and reputational damage in the future if left unchecked.”
He warned that a current skills shortage in the area of AI might hold businesses back. “Companies should invest in upskilling and reskilling programmes for current employees. Partnering with academic institutions and industry organisations will also help to build a pipeline of AI talent.”
Job concerns
In March 2023, Goldman Sachs predicted that AI could replace 300m jobs. A more recent report focused on Ireland’s economy suggested that it could displace roughly 160,000 jobs in the country.
In the time between these two reports, countless debates and discussions have taken place about AI displacing some roles and creating new roles. According to the TCS report, leaders are pretty evenly split, with 49pc believing that AI will increase or have no impact on the number of job roles created and 47pc believing that more roles will be eliminated than created.
However, 65pc of respondents said human decision-making, intuition and creativity will remain essential to their company’s competitive advantage, but Grant warned that companies need to have a comprehensive approach to workforce transformation to ready their employees.
“Companies need to understand the existing capabilities and identify gaps to the skills required for AI technologies, implementing continuous learning programmes that include both foundational and advanced AI-related skills.”
He added that leaders need to foster a culture of innovation and adaptability. For example, TCS’s own Letterkenny global delivery centre has an innovation lab where employees can experiment with AI technologies.
“It really is about creating an environment where experimentation is encouraged and failures seen as learning opportunities. We should also emphasise the importance of soft skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity and emotional intelligence, which are crucial in an AI-driven work environment,” he said.
“By taking the appropriate steps, companies can ensure their workforce is well-prepared for the changes brought about by AI technologies, fostering a more agile, skilled and innovative organisation capable of thriving in the AI-driven future.”
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