From Data To Profit

CHAPTER 12A Vision for AI Opportunities

Companies sat on the sidelines waiting for a signal to start the race into AI, but few companies knew what to look for. The last decade has been littered with AI failure cases. Meta has public failures with ad tracking and its research-driven open-source tools. Amazon pushed an automated résumé screening and recruiting app that was quickly pulled due to bias. IBM Watson shipped to hospitals, and those customers rapidly put a “return to sender” sticker on it and sent Watson back.

After e-commerce's disruptive waves flooded retail, businesses began paying closer attention to the risks and opportunities that technology drives. There was consensus that AI will disrupt, but when?

Then ChatGPT changed everything. It demonstrated a massive opportunity like no AI product before it. It also made clear the risks that businesses faced. AI was no longer something on the distant horizon. It has matured into a team member writers use to be more productive. Students cheat on exams with it. Researchers use it to pass exams students spent their 4-year college degree program preparing for.

Three months changed everything because OpenAI did what no one before them had. ChatGPT was easy to use and presented an ocean of potential applications. Microsoft implemented it rapidly and offered paid tiers after short trial periods. It powered several features in their existing product suite. Everything Microsoft did demonstrates a new focus on monetization.

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