GenAI Imperative

In Forrester’s 40 years, we’ve rarely recommended that customers move to building new technology immediately. We generally recommend testing with caution until the technology matures and the vendor landscape streamlines.

We’re breaking that rule with general artificial intelligence (genAI). We believe you must move NOW.

This is not cryptocurrency, not blockchain, and not the metaverse. Cryptocurrencies are for speculators; blockchain for programmers; metaverse for gamers. This is the biggest technology/business change of my lifetime, and if you’re in your 40s, this will be one of the two or three biggest of them all. your life. This change will cause extinction for many but opportunity and growth for many others. Position yourself so you don’t become a victim. Position yourself to win.

Why now?

For my entire career, since 1979, I have been told that artificial intelligence is “the next big thing” and that “next year, it will come and change everything.” It didn’t happen and it never happened.

In the technology industry, big changes are difficult to predict. The components are visible, but predicting when they will combine to create something new is nearly impossible. Years ago, Forrester noted that technological change happens suddenly, suddenly, and seemingly out of the blue – like a thunderstorm arriving on a summer day. You go out into the sun in the morning, come in for lunch, and go out into the thunder and rain. Technological storms sneak up and come unexpectedly.

What causes these technological storms? They are often triggered by a fundamental change in the user interface. The PC storm was sparked in 1982 by MS-DOS – the first easy-to-use and accessible personal computer operating system. In 1994, the Netscape browser suddenly opened up the World Wide Web. Steve Jobs’s app home screen, the heart of the iPhone, opened the door to smartphones in 2007.

The user interface change that ushered in next-generation AI was OpenAI’s ChatGPT prompt, launched in November 2022, a full five years after researchers identified the technology. This simple and easy way to query a large language model has users excited. Theory turns into reality, storms come. If you haven’t tried it yet, go here.

What is this thing?

Here is my simple definition: Generative AI allows humans to converse in their own language with huge amounts of data and generate new content from that data.

I have a life insurance policy and every few years my broker sends me the policy to review. I dreaded that moment because I didn’t really understand insurance – I found it obscure and boring. But what if I could talk to my policy?

“How much did I pay into the contract?”

“$275,000.”

“If I die today, how much will the beneficiary receive?”

“350,000 USD.”

“If I exchange my insurance policy for cash today, how much money will I receive?”

“325,000 USD.”

“Can I change the beneficiary?”

“Yes you can. Do you want to do it now?”

“Yes, change the beneficiary from A to B.”

“Okay, we made that change. Would you like me to send you the revised policy?

“Yes, that would be great.”

The world is filled with huge blocks of data that people do not understand, do not want to read or do not have time to read. With genAI, they can talk to that data and get what they need, when they need it, in a form customized for them. This is a very, very big problem that will completely change the way knowledge is constructed, distributed and consumed.

Impact number one: There is no longer a website as we know it

There is no bigger pile of data than the web. For 30 years, we’ve spent our lives sifting through that pile in search of answers. The website has always been a plain mess, filled with poorly designed pages, confusing pages, out-of-sequence graphics, and buried data. But it was all we had, so we used it for 30 years.

Innovative AI will largely replace the web. Instead of going to Bank of America’s website and looking up balances, credit card transactions, or mortgage payments due, you’ll go to the bank’s big reminder box and start chatting. Behind that prompt will be your bank “content” – a continuously updated general large language model that will answer your questions and dynamically build graphics and charts to helps you understand how your money is performing. The result will be faster service, rapid customization, improved experiences, and more satisfied and knowledgeable customers.

What will this new world look like? You will enter www.taylorswift.com and visit the website. That won’t change. But what you find there will be very different from the old website. Yes, there will be some art from the latest tour. But the main experience will take place through the “Chat with Taylor” prompt box, where fans can buy tickets, purchase merchandise, learn about tour dates and get the latest videos, all through chat story. And fans will talk to “Taylor Language Model”. These personal conversations with “Taylor” will be driven by a trained model of the artist’s lyrics, interviews, statements, diaries and exclusive content.

The age of data search is in its twilight phase. The era of chatting with data is beginning. Yes, the web will still exist (many people will still want to search and read). But it will be overshadowed by the more convenient and faster genAI experience.

Second impact: The death of Google

With the decline of the web, the bell has rung for Google. Why do we all have to try to search the web, be presented with a series of websites and then read through them in the hope of finding an answer? Because every time you search and view a website, Google gets paid. The company really wanted us on this treadmill because 80% of their revenue comes from selling Google Ads.

But creative AI will help us succeed.

I recently boarded an American Airlines flight from Boston to Dallas, connecting to Austin. We were all shocked when the pilot announced that four tires on our plane had to be replaced (after millions of miles flown, that was a new tire for me). I panicked because I had to be in Austin that day. I quickly pinged ChatGPT with this question: “How long does it take to change a tire on an Airbus 319?” And immediately I received the answer: “About 30 minutes.” So I did the math: 4×30 minutes equals two hours, which means I wouldn’t have made my connection. I quickly booked my last ticket to Dallas on another airline. Five minutes later, the pilot came over the intercom and said, “It will take about two hours to change the tire.” I was saved by innovative AI. Conversely, if I Google my question, I’m thrown into a bunch of web pages that I have to wade through and decipher. Will I end up having to struggle through a 500-page A-319 repair manual? Maybe.

Innovative AI will end the game of frantically searching the web for pages that may or may not provide us with answers. We will get answers faster when we bypass Google and Bing. What will become of the model from advertising? A new advertising model is sure to emerge – brought into the AI ​​conversation.

Third impact: Trust as a business weapon

Will customers trust innovative AI? Not if it creates what Forrester calls “coherent nonsense.” If companies release unfiltered and inaccurate synthetic AI content to unsuspecting customers, they will ultimately lose market share, brand value, and buyers.

That means everyone is still in the picture. As companies operate Generative AI, they will have to continually monitor and refine it to ensure that it conveys valuable information and not illusion. In that respect, this is an “Iron Man” moment, not a robot moment – ​​it is an opportunity to put workers in technological “suits” to help them serve customers better. As long as customers know that there is a human being in that suit, trust will increase, because people trust humans.

And that happens when employees no longer have to do repetitive tasks (like answering the same questions over and over again), freeing them up to spend more quality time. for your customers. I will coin a new term here: “Human AI,” combining the quality and speed of digital with human connection and intimacy.

There will be fewer human touchpoints, but they will become important moments of truth.

Conclusion

It’s time. Companies and leadership teams are anxiously waiting. The opportunities are too important and the learning curve too steep to ignore – seize them immediately. Start the process of converting your vast amounts of data into models your customers can talk to.

We support companies appointing an executive team member as head of the AI ​​team. Early implementation will be quite technical, so we recommend the CIO or chief digital officer run the point. And since much of the aggregated AI content will be used to improve the customer experience, the CMO must be a close partner to the executive.

Welcome to what Ted Schadler at Forrester calls the “Intelligent Century.” Here are links to Forrester content that can give you more background information (including a summary if you’re not a customer):

This post was written by CEO George Colony and it originally appeared This.

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