TechWave: A Gartner Podcast for IT Leaders

Impacts of Generative AI

Episode Summary

Generative AI is being talked about everywhere, given that it may change the way innovation is generated and realized. Moreover, it’s about accelerating business impact. In this TechWave podcast, Daryl Plummer, a Gartner expert on disruptive technology, discusses the impacts of generative AI.

Episode Notes

Generative AI refers to artificial intelligence techniques that learn a representation of artifacts from data and use it to generate brand-new, completely original artifacts at scale that preserve a likeness to original data.

Generative AI enables computers to generate brand-new, completely original variations of content (including images, video, music, speech and text). It can improve or alter existing content, and it can create new data elements and novel models of real-world objects, such as buildings, parts, drugs and materials.

In this podcast, our guest Daryl Plummer takes us through a number of ways to consider the impact of generative AI. We discuss the topic through the lens of a buyer or consumer of the technology, a business leader and a technology service provider.

Gartner’s high-level messages regarding generative AI include:

• AI is no longer just a technology or tool. We should no longer treat AI as just a technology. It is no longer just a business tool. AI is now in a place where it is reshaping our society and impacting what it means to be human.
• Don’t say “No,” but ask “How?” We believe advances in AI and the impacts on society cannot be stopped. We must embrace AI and take a “proactionary” approach, which means that we are in favor of advancements that are executed responsibly, through appropriate experimentation.
• Where there is disruption, there is hope. While we believe that AI should not be hyped, it should never be underestimated. We are at the beginning of many more breakthroughs. And while we acknowledge the fear that surrounds AI, we emphasize the hope. Nothing should be seen as impossible — not even artificial general intelligence.

Recommendations

Executive leaders responsible for innovation and managing disruption should:

• Understand that AI is advancing rapidly, with an enormous impact on society and business. 
• Address fears of potential job losses incurred from AI technology advances by emphasizing the goal of AI is to augment human capability, not replace it.
• Collaborate across teams by mixing engineering skills with social sciences. 
• Balance opportunity with risk. Assess and mitigate risk of using new types of AI.
• While further innovating AI, work on their cutting-edge use cases and governance simultaneously.

Frances Karamouzis, distinguished VP analyst, hosted our expert Daryl Plummer, who is also a distinguished VP analyst. Plummer’s research focuses on the strategic issues of cloud computing and digital disruption, and the unfolding of the future through predictions, trends and evolving digital business cycles.