🤖 Takeaway from Di Tech Strategy Summit: The new AI is nothing like the old one

Last week, I gave a talk at the Di Tech Strategy Summit, which also gave me the opportunity to listen to several interesting presentations — and I noticed something troubling.

Many of the speakers were CIOs or similar executives at large companies, or consultants working with those executives and management teams.

They painted a picture of a growing frustration among CEOs, leadership teams, and boards. For about ten years, they’ve invested in AI solutions but have yet to see the major results they had hoped for. As a result, some are becoming skeptical or hesitant to continue that journey.

But AI has changed dramatically over those ten years.

What they invested in was likely machine learning, following the breakthrough of neural networks in 2012. Getting their data in order and finding the right projects for machine learning has taken time. Then, in late 2022, the playing field changed completely when ChatGPT was released.

Generative AI is something entirely different from machine learning — a tool for the entire organization, where the key is for all employees to start using it. We are once again in a phase of testing and experimentation, trying to understand how this new technology works and how to adapt organizations and workflows around it.

But for some CEOs and boards, everything is simply “AI.” When in fact, these are two very different technologies — at least in how they can be applied.

The CEO or board that now slows down AI investments because of low returns and the belief that “AI is AI” is making the biggest mistake of their careers.

Mathias Sundin
Angry Optimist