By Steve Nunn, President and CEO of The Open Group
Collins Dictionary named AI the word of 2023 for good reason. The emergence of a new generation of AI technologies over the last couple of years has stimulated intense activity across all areas of business. Legislators, regulators, and industry bodies are now seeking to establish guardrails around safe, effective, sustainable usage. R&D-led businesses are investing significant time and capital in training ever more powerful foundation models. Technology vendors are experimenting with the innovative implementation of AI in end-user applications. In short, AI has taken the technology world by storm.
However, there is a much broader transformation underway. This is a longer-term, deeper-rooted change than any immediately-apparent insertion of chatbots into everyday life. AI offers a wider lens on how every human activity is wired together – and how we could do so differently. It will be driven by a new pillar of work, away from the limelight of novelty, by those whose task it is to map and enable the flow and use of information through organizations and societies.
AI’s capacity to learn, interpret, and abstract at scale alters how we navigate complex, manifestly unpredictable situations and solutions, and brings an ecosystem-scale vista of possibilities, challenges, and dependencies into view. It forces us to examine every aspect of the human condition and our increasing dependence on the tools we fashion. This is the pillar of “practice’, which will emerge from the need to harness both the immediate and indirect value advanced AI can bring. It is about direct interpretation, implementation, control, and effect, rather than indirect consideration, control, and effect. It is, in metaphorical terms then, about the rubber hitting the road.
Demand for skills
As we look at how AI will continue to shape the business landscape, we can see an element that hasn’t received much attention yet: how do we ensure that the right skills, best practices, and standards are developed and shared amongst those managing this AI revolution, and most importantly, how do we uphold the standard of that professional practice?
Some voices liken the onset of AI to the invention of the Internet, which reflects the skills that are now required from staff, with new data showing that 66% of business leaders wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills.
Adapting to the new standard
These skills will become key because, whilst AI is an innovative technology today, it will quickly become a standard technological approach that is routinely applied everywhere in organizations. From creating, producing, and delivering new products and services that were impossible before, to improving existing ones.
Business leaders are now facing important decisions around AI investment and the value it will bring – from financial ROI to improving the organization’s ability to change. As with any new technology, the novelty surrounding AI means that there are no established practices, and a fresh path needs to be forged. This need to invent paths to success creates a strong sense of uncertainty that businesses are facing – especially, if they are not even sure where AI can be applied.
Guiding professional practice
Success in transformation comes from effective use of new technology to improve traditional business outcomes. Leaders are, therefore, looking for a strong connection between their investment and their strategic goals and objectives. To guide them, the industry needs to establish best practices, paths to success, and standards that will underpin AI implementation across businesses. This should happen like so much fundamental IT work; with structure and within an independent, objective, and open environment. It should also be undertaken by consensus, and for everyone’s benefit. That includes benefit for individuals, enterprises, and all the various strata of society involved.
What the industry needs is a critical mass of interested practitioners, sponsors, and supporters willing to commit to the long-term challenge. The aim will be to ensure unbiased, positive, and representative progress of both the needs and outcomes involved. This covers how technology interacts, how it is organized and, at its heart, how we intellectually frame its function.
The development of best practices, established industry benefits, and a professional practice that can guide the whole process will be critical for business leaders to make the right decisions about AI investment and achieving the business goals they set for themselves.