AI for Orchestrators - Newsletter #12

The latest AI insights for Business Leaders and Organisational Orchestrators.

Staccato provocation…

R&D to commercialisation with Generative AI...why wait?

Hello Business Orchestrators!

This issue is a special focused on the acceleration of R&D to commercialisation…and/or public utility (including defence).

It takes a lot of effort and investment to get new R&D off the ground, even if you’re one of those dedicated institutions in the public/private space, such as universities and national Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs). Or a big global corporate player with deep pockets and resources. Often there is a lot of friction in the system, from allocating funding through internal budgets, or outside instruments, not to mention the tracking and management challenges over the period of investment.

For smaller commercial entities, such as SMEs, it can be tougher given that they also have to be commercially viable with fewer resources. And then there can be regional differences in terms of the pace of R&D, allocation of resource and capital, and leveraging what is often loosely termed innovation.

But traditional assumptions about time, cost, quality and location of R&D are under assault from the great leveller, known collectively as “Generative AI”. Or just plain old “AI”.

And it’s not just the AI, in all it’s guises, that is unleashing creatives in organisations from the traditional constraints across R&D. Parallel, overlapping progress in the vast field of robotics (including drones), accelerated through its own ever improving set of AI-powered learning models, will contribute to a rapid pick-up of pace in prototyping and manufacturing capabilities. Not to mention much anticipated public and military applications.

But underlying it all is the central theme spanning 2024 from the perspective of this humble newsletter. That being the improved simulation capabilities, combined with the rise of agents, enabling R&D practitioners to unbundle friction-intense manual tasks from workflows, freeing them up to focus more on the creative stuff.

From early ideation, to getting funding, to hands-on wet work in that labs, all the way up the stack to commercial or public utility, R&D is about to get it’s 2023 ChatGPT moment.

Much like the accordion in the picture above, AI will reduce time, cost and friction in getting R&D projects off the ground on one side. And on the other side our research capacities, creativity and ability to collaborate internationally, will disrupt traditional assumptions about how and where R&D is done.

So buckle up and lets dive into some of the weeks headlines that could be on your radars, dear Orchestrators, as you give me 5 minutes of your valuable time!

This weeks attention grabbers:

• Simulation, at low cost, will dramatically reduce time, cost and friction of R&D initiatives, whilst simultaneously unleashing the creative capacities lying dormant in many of us. As previously reported in this newsletter (and many others), OpenAI’s Sora model demo’s caused gasps of excitement and concern, depending on your current job description and creative ambitions. Now, they have allowed a number of “creatives” to play around with it, and the results can be seen in this link. So what happens when the rest of us get our hands on it (I’ll park the security/deep fake concerns for a future security special), and how will this rapidly evolving set of world simulation capabilities benefit R&D shops as the physics bit gets fine-tuned? Check out the latest video demos. Much more to chew on…

• Here’s a nice vid from Microsoft Research on AI and an unfolding revolution in scientific discovery. Good insights for universities, RTOs, and especially startups and investors looking to spin-out research.

• Funding allocations for “AI” projects across regions, the EU included, seems to be getting dispersed across a wider range of organisations. AI Definitions wax and wane, but here it’s good to see how institutions such as the Greek University of Patras is leading the way. Over the next year I would expect to see new emergent properties in national and international funding programmes, specifically around budget size and allocations. Basically, getting more bang for the buck/€. Much like the trends we have seen on the venture funding size where, as a result of generative AI, startups need less capital to spin-up, resulting in smaller fund sizes, or enabling more bets with the same fund size as before this whole generative phenomena emerged pre-Nov ‘22.

• And on the subject of funding allocations in the realm of AI, the EU is trying to address the evolving challenges of utilising generative AI to…generate proposals and projects, as well as how their existing evaluation mechanisms keep pace with it. Another challenge they have to contend with is how other global regions choose to approach the same challenge/opportunity. Your correspondent is sitting on the fence on this one, and monitoring the situation closely to spot emerging trends and opportunities. Science Business magazine gives its own spin on things here. One thing’s for sure, it will have significant macro-economic implications if the funding institutions choose to over-rely on out-dated manual evaluation mechanisms, while other regions power ahead with agents. As a former evaluator for a European country, I can see a lot of scope for funding ROI improvements through automation.

• A couple of weeks ago Future Today Institute issued their 2024 trend report, and it’s deep dive into a broad set of converging technologies including AI, Bioengineering, Mobility, Robotics, Drones. Metaverse and many others. Worth downloading. Lots of key drivers that will impact R&D, and how and where it is funded.

• The EU AI Act got published and there’s still a long way to go in terms of figuring out the details against a moving set of targets, and simultaneously institutionalising it across our collective business and research activities. It’s in a race against the daily acceleration of new models and use cases that are powering further ahead of regulation. Still, lots to welcome, challenge and adapt to. It should be a goldmine for AI agent-powered consultants! I dumped it into ChatGPT and created a mind-map of its “High Risk” themes to save you a bit of time (see below).

Bonus Orchestrator hack: ChatGPT/Whimsical GPT mind-map of the EU AI act “High Risk” themes:

5 emerging possibilities for using Generative AI simulation capabilities to accelerate R&D:

1. Prototype Testing: Simulate real-world scenarios to test prototypes, skipping costly physical models.

2. Data Synthesis: Generate vast datasets for training without manual collection, slicing through time constraints. And creating new synthetic data unleashing whole new paradigms.

3. Scenario Modeling: Rapidly model thousands of R&D scenarios, cutting down trial-and-error cycles.

4. Design Optimisation: Auto-tweak designs for optimal performance before physical production, saving resources, reducing funding constraints.

5. Regulatory Compliance: Simulate compliance scenarios to ensure product adherence, reducing regulatory setbacks.

…and here’s that in a mind-map, generated in ChatGPT with Whimsical GPT:

Staccato Burst…

Re-imagine what you can do with your own team’s resources by embracing converging Generative AI capabilities, combined with robotics. The horizon is closing in, the gap between strategy and tactics is narrowing…creative opportunities that scale are within your grasp…and your competitor’s…

That’s all for this week. If you’re curious you can also check out more insights from The Nordic Bridge on YouTube, on the organisational implications from applying (or not applying) GenAI.