I keep thinking about the race that is going on now, concerning the uses of artificial intelligence and how to apply it. After talking with customers, it’s very clear to me that there are three ways to go.
One way is, of course, to keep doing what you are doing and just enhance your products and services with AI. There are plenty of applications that you can use.
The second one is, of course, to renew your portfolio and develop more sophisticated products and services for your customers, things that you couldn’t do before. A little bit more risky, of course, but with a good dialogue with your customers it should be feasible.
The third one is the most exciting one, and the one that I see more and more of my customers are jumping on. What happens if we think AI first? What would happen if we were not here? How would someone disrupt our business? How would someone deliver the “jobs to be done” to our customers? Just starting from scratch and on the base on AI? I think that’s the most exciting one, if only because it can give you a roadmap for your products and services ahead.
At the same time, you have to think about two other factors, because, of course, success is not guaranteed.
The one factor is: Are your customers ready? How many of your customers want to implement the products and services that you are going to deliver or that you are thinking to deliver based on AI? Some may don’t want it or simply can’t do that. It’s a question of digital maturity. How mature are they? Should you do a survey and map the grade of digital maturity among your customers?
The second factor is how many of your partners in your value chain are going to be disrupted by your new products and services, your new offerings, because you may get control over a bigger chunk of data in the same value chain. . How could you create a win-win for them anyway? Or should you just claim more value for your shareholders?
AI opens enormous opportunities when developing new products and services, but you should first identify how they may change the ecosystem in your business model, map the AI maturity of your customers, and finally decide which way you want to go: enhance, renew or disrupt.