Making peace (and profits) with AI

Mark Gamble, senior director,product marketing, analytics at OpenText, argues that firms need to embrace AI, not fear it

Three years ago, a robot became the world's first company director. Hong-Kong venture capital firm, Deep Knowledge, appointed the robot, named Vital, to find trends ‘not immediately obvious to humans'.

In time, it will get equal voting rights on financial decisions made by the firm. It's these kinds of headlines that make white collar workers a little uneasy. Most of us accept that machines will inevitably eclipse manual work through automation and greater efficiency. But now they're creeping up the career ladder.

Whilst none of us know exactly how the long-term future of machines and humans will pan out, just about everybody has an opinion. Labour leader Jeremy Corbin wants to impose a robot tax on firms who replace staff with technology. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk thinks Artificial Intelligence and rapid changes to workforce automation will entirely replace workers over time, forcing governments to pay us a universal income to make up for our lost income.

You can see the attraction. Robots don't need holidays, sick days, pension contributions, expense accounts, car allowances, pep talks, performance reviews or any other motivations or benefits for that matter. They work faster, more consistently and more reliably than humans. And numbers are reaching a critical mass.

Researchers predict that by 2025, there will be more than seven million unmanned aircraft (or civilian drones) flying the US skies, Japan will have one million industrial robots installed, and over the next 10 years, there will be 60 million robots in the world. That's just shy of the entire UK population.

Regardless of your own personal feelings on the subject, we are in a unique position. This generation has a front row seat to a labour migration that is set to be greater than that of the Great Depression. My personal view is that it won't all be doom and gloom. Humanity will (hopefully) find its place in the longer-term scenario. But certainly, in the short term at least, there are some areas where I think we should be raging with, not against, the machines.

Any company that's not embracing AI as a business strategy today is at risk of becoming obsolete tomorrow - and tomorrow will come much faster for some than others. Whilst we're still on the cusp of AI becoming a mainstream de-facto technology, there's a land grab of market share to be had by using it as a competitive advantage. That's why the more astute business leaders are dipping their toes into the AI waters.

And you don't need to venture far - the Fab Four (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple) are already steaming ahead with AI and Machine-learning, getting it baked into their products and operations from the ground floor up. It's becoming intrinsic to their customer journeys, or being used to blur the line between human interactions and what is digital. All the while their bots are getting faster, smarter and learning not just to think, but to act as well.

Despite the Hollywood plot lines, AI-powered machines haven't changed the course of human history or the future of life on earth just yet. But the intelligence and insights they provide today can certainly change the fortunes and future of many businesses in the years to come.

Mark Gamble is senior director,product marketing, analytics at OpenText