When I was a student in England in the 1990s, I often talked about the rise of the Internet, which was still a new and relatively misunderstood concept. At the time, the idea that this could fundamentally reshape the way we live, work and do business seemed far-fetched to many.
One featured story concerns a small family-owned biscuit manufacturer in Whitby, England, called Botham of Whitby. (Interestingly, Whitby was the same port from which Captain James Cook sailed to map previously unexplored lands.) The family were among the first to adopt electric commerce element, I told my audience, explaining how this traditional business was taking advantage of the new trend. digital world to reach customers far beyond the Yorkshire region.
I remember the giggles and disbelief of the audience. The idea of buying baked goods online seems absurd to everyone. “Who would order cookies on the internet?”
But the cookie maker saw the future and realized the potential of the Internet long before it became mainstream. And while everyone else was laughing, they were busy launching a business model that would change the world.
The technology wave is exploding rapidly
As Mark Twain once said: “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” The technological waves we have experienced—the transition from analog to digital, the rise of the Internet, the move to the cloud, etc.—can inform and enlighten us as we We are about to exploit the full potential of AI, quantum and other technologies.
The challenge is that today’s technology wave is exploding faster. And waiting or pausing is not an option.
We have entered an era where the pace of change is exponential, with each innovation building on the previous ones. While it took the development of the Internet 16 years to fully penetrate business and society, we no longer have a long period of experimentation and adoption. Each new wave not only introduces new tools; it creates new business models, leaving room for anyone to seize the opportunity.
For example, in a few years, cloud computing has completely changed the way we work. Suddenly, you could create a website from your coffee shop laptop, paying only for the computing power you used. And the entire industry has been transformed. This democratization of access allows small startups to compete with established giants.
The launch of the iPhone brought another seismic shift. Suddenly, with social media and web applications literally in the palm of your hand, individuals can connect, share and influence audiences anytime, anywhere.
Companies have a new way to reach customers, making marketing more accessible, targeted and measurable than ever.
And now, with AI a top priority and technological advances happening at an unprecedented pace, how can companies keep up? How can we effectively harness AI and integrate it into our business models to avoid being overwhelmed by the impending wave of change?
In his book, Thanks for being lateThomas Friedman emphasizes the importance of pausing and reflecting in an age of rapid acceleration, rather than reacting impulsively. But in today’s AI era, do businesses still have that luxury?
Thanks to democratization, AI will become more accessible to more people. But companies need to start testing AI as soon as possible for it to work effectively. This is less in line with Friedman and more in line with the Japanese proverb, “Fall seven times, get up eight times.” To achieve quick impact, iterate and fail over and over again. In other words, build the plane while it’s flying.
To do so, businesses need to put collaboration front and center, and work with partners who understand how to shape the future and push the limits that AI can create.
We see customers quickly take that leap by starting small, thinking big, and demonstrating quick wins.
AI is a core element of strategy
One example is financial services company Equitable Holdings (Fair shares is a DXC customer), built a virtual service agent powered by GenAI to analyze thousands of documents, enabling customer representatives to respond 80% faster and freeing them up to focus on more value-added tasks.
And we’re seeing banks, airlines, healthcare organizations, automakers, and others quickly move from experimenting with AI to making it a core element of their strategy. their strategy. Helping customers seize each opportunity with the passion of a first-time entrepreneur sets the stage for broader implementation based on the insights we learn together.
Just as people know how to swim through ocean waves without being knocked over, companies cannot avoid what lies ahead. They need to dive in and start imagining a world where machines can automate, analyze and even predict the future.
As I reflect on the journey from those early days of skepticism to the cutting-edge AI-powered solutions we are deploying today, one thing remains clear: embracing the future is not just an option. choose which is a necessity. The pace of technological change is increasingly rapid, businesses that hesitate or cling to the past will be left behind.
And like Whitby’s Botham, those who see beyond the present will be ready to move boldly forward.
