AI for Orchestrators - Newsletter #19

The latest AI insights for Business Leaders and Organisational Orchestrators.

Staccato provocation…

The relationship between jobs (i.e. what we are employed to do) and tasks is rapidly evolving…

Hello Business Orchestrators!

In this weeks newsletter:

Jobs in business functions and workflows are bundles of tasks which increasingly get re-wired as individuals and teams get levelled-up, as generative AI weaves its way across the tapestry of trade. Consider the great shifts in organisational capability currently underway (measured against pre-November ‘22 business assumptions). How much extra capacity and productivity is currently being released/increased to run existing businesses better, and simultaneously redirect energy towards fruitful new possibilities.

As we level-up, individually, and in teams across organisations, we acquire new skills, but gradually over time we loose a few. Our scope of work increases but perhaps all the tasks that were part of the original job we were recruited for dissolves into the ether.

As our use and dependency on generative AI, and specifically LLMs increases, so does our risk….especially if access to those LLMs goes down for a few hours or longer, or they are somehow corrupted. The impact across a business’s activities could be immediate (ChatGPT back online - The Verge).

Consider the scenario if we have delegated a rolling 40% of content creation/decision making to the LLMs etc. and suddenly loose access. Will we have lost the edge in understanding tasks needed to run the business? What are the financial implications of this? The gap is likely to increase as scope of GenAIs increases, eating into more manual work, enhanced by agents taking on the orchestration of more workflows.

Here’s where governance, security, risk management and back-up plans need to catchup with the blurring pace of GenAI’s adoption across organisations.

These evolving GenAI/organisational challenges/exposures are critical for Boards, Investors and Leadership teams to understand and balance against the pressure to accelerate faster with their adoption.

Let’s dive into some of the week’s other headlines that could be on your radars, dear Orchestrators, as you give me 5 minutes of your valuable time!

This weeks attention grabbers:

• According to McKinsey, businesses lack a clear adoption roadmap for generative AI (CIO Dive). Interestingly enough, they also go on to say that lack of clarity isn’t slowing down speed of adoption….and opening up an intriguing business model/capacity challenge for the big consultancies.

• The future is…sending your AI avatar to Zoom meetings instead of you (The Guardian). Lots to unpack here…although we’ve all probably had meetings with people who “weren’t really there…”

• Speaking of which - Microsoft/LinkedIn work trend report (VentureBeat). Apparently there are 5 stages we have to go through. Impressive insights only 1.5 years into the phenomena.

• AI’s next challenge - how to forget (Politico). What happens when licensing deals run out, what about the right to be forgotten…and much more. Plenty for researchers, regulators and legal teams to ponder.

• AI safety - can we trust these organisations who provide a technology that transforms/disrupts businesses and services on a global scale? OpenAI in the news on their approach to safety (VentureBeat).

• Growth in Data Centre providers renting out their NVIDIA compute (FT paywall).

• AI is driving up emissions even as it drives up business performance (FT paywall).

• …and bets on Nuclear and fusion energy to power data centres (Microsoft).

• Microsoft again…they have made a big deal with G42 in the UAE (FT).

• Here’s more on evolving learnings of LLM thirst for energy and how it’s impacting IT Procurement strategies (VentureBeat).

• EU report - wind & solar up by nearly two-thirds since 2019 (Techxplore).

• Woof woof - Dog language - implications for canine collaboration. Can the grid handle it? How do owner’s and their mutt’s get levelled-up? Are we barking up the wrong tree? More to come…(Techxplore).

• Convergence segway - Multi-robot research platform research (Techxplore).

• New electronic skin mimics human touch with 3D architecture (Techxplore).

5 questions for Organisational orchestrators:

• What contingency plans are in place if we lose access to our generative AI systems, and how will we maintain business continuity?

• How are we measuring the productivity and capacity gains from generative AI, and what metrics indicate its successful integration?

• What strategies are we employing to ensure critical skills are retained as generative AI automates more tasks?

• How are we balancing the risks and security concerns of generative AI with the need to stay competitive and innovative?

• What are the financial implications of a sudden AI system failure, and how are we preparing to mitigate potential losses?

Staccato Burst…

It’s just getting started. Consider evolving iterations/learnings across your own, and other industrial, use cases. Things are happening fast. Understand how old and relevant the insights are that you read in reports.

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