In 1998 I was sitting at the bar of Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too! on El Camino Real in Mountain View (the original - if you know you know) talking about CRM - this was when Clarify and Siebel were dominant - and all the potential business benefits that could be achieved when business were able to really know their customers and serve them as individuals. One of my coworkers said – “But, customers are never going to share that data”. 

In 2002 I was sitting in a conference room on Amphitheater Parkway in Mountain View - it was an Intuit conference room… not Googleplex - talking about the future of Quickbooks at the inception of the Rich Internet Application wave - which would later evolve into the SaaS revolution. The room was glum - a coworker had just said, rather emphatically, “small business owners will never trust us with their companies’ financial data.” 

I can tell similar stories about Social Media at the beginning when Twitter and FriendFeed (nod to Brett Taylor) were dominant, Big Data when anything non-ACID was considered heresy, ML and AI when Spark was a neat research project out of Berkeley and neural networks (CNNs) were just becoming computationally viable. 

Each of these disruptive waves of technology was heralded as world changing, each came with its own flavor of automating away humans and each ended up having broad implications that did and did not align with the initial expectations and perceived challenges. Having lived through more of these waves then I care to admit here’s what I think you should focus on now - with GenAI promising to change everything. 

The one universal truth, the one thing I know about the future with absolute certainty, is that each of these waves does one thing - enables you to do things that have always been valuable to your customers and your business by radically changing the relationship between investment and return. That radical change allows you to do things you always wanted to do but were previously too expensive (I - investment) to implement or sustain for the change created in your fundamental business KPI(s) (R - return). 

GenAI is not different. So, instead of focusing on technology let’s talk about the fundamental investment/return relationship that has been altered and what it is now possible to do for your business. 

GenAI (and AI broadly) fundamentally changes the investment in skilled labor required to both implement and sustain labor intensive operations. That’s it. That’s all it does. (Note: I’m specifically and intentionally ignoring AGI and “Super-Intelligence” because they don’t actually exist… yet…). 

So, the question isn’t how do I leverage GenAI, or how do I get from AI to ROI - the question is: What returns would you chase that prior to now had untenable associated skilled labor cost? 

(Note: If you are looking for a discussion of “how to replace all the people with GenAI and radically reduce cost” look elsewhere - haven’t we learned yet that the winners from each wave of disruptive technology do more, not the same at a lower cost.) 

Here are 4 examples: 

  1. What if you could provide a white glove, personalized assistant for every customer helping them use your product in the best way for their unique situation? Imagine the LTV improvement. 

  2. What if you could deploy an “army” of researchers testing 1000(s) of hypothesis daily? Imagine the velocity of breakthrough products. 

  3. What if you could have hundreds of analysts reviewing reams of data in near real time to constantly find anomalies and opportunities and recommend what actions to take? Imagine the ability to adapt and innovate. 

  4. What if you could deploy a huge team of developers and business analysts to rewrite the hard to support legacy software that is preventing you from rapidly implementing new features and driving business value? Imagine the productivity improvement. 

Let’s start now by changing our mindset and focusing on the fundamental change in the relationship between investment and return an asking ourselves: 

What have we always wanted to do for our customers and business that has been impossible because the cost of scaled skilled labor was untenable?

About the Author: Brian Roy

I am a dynamic, straight-talking computer scientist, leader and entrepreneur dedicated to creating innovative products leveraging technology to solve real, meaningful problems. The views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of my employers past, present, or future.

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