The Secrets of AI Value Creation

Introduction

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

—Nelson Mandela (politician, former president of South Africa)

Welcome to the world of AI, where the pace of change is relentless, and the opportunities and stakes seem higher than ever – especially with the latest buzz surrounding AI's tremendous potential for value creation. Through the newest developments in generative AI with solutions such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, the age‐old question of AI hype versus reality takes center stage once more. Although there's undoubtedly substantial potential for this technology to create value (McKinsey 2023), Sequoia, a prominent venture capital firm known for its early investments in companies such as Apple, Google, Oracle, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Airbnb, has pointed out that even though it has outperformed the SaaS market and generated more than $1 billion in revenue within a mere few months, ‘generative AI's biggest problem [right now] is not finding use cases or demand or distribution, it is proving value’ (Huang and Grady 2023). But this challenge is by no means new to the field of AI and forms the central theme of this book.

Whether you're just someone interested in exploring the subject or a seasoned business leader, an AI expert, an enterprise data and AI manager, a data scientist, an engineer, or an AI start‐up, you might be seeking guidance on how to create value with AI. Regardless of your ...