AI Is Learning From Humans: No More So-So Strategies

A radically new human approach to human-machine interaction has opened up possibilities for strategic innovation. Rather than machines learning by going through mountains of data, humans are now teaching the machines. As a result, organizations are using AI in new ways, and technologies, data and talent are interconnected. Yet only a small number of companies have made a leap into new strategies that these human-machine technologies have opened up. Three of these new high-potential strategies are Forever Beta, Minimum Viable Idea (MVI), and Co-lab. The companies using these new strategies share three important characteristics. First, their technology, business strategy and execution are closely intertwined. Second, humans are in the driver’s seat. Third, these companies understand that all organizations are now technology companies. 

Technology-driven business strategies will require farseeing leaders who are able to see strategic opportunities in this new link between humans and technology. Companies that continue down the path of incremental automation will lag behind, as will workers. The economists Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University concluded that “it is not the ‘brilliant’ automation technologies that threaten employment and wages, but ‘so-so technologies’ that generate small productivity improvements.” The same can be said for so-so strategies.