I got into a conversation with a few colleagues last month about the thorny issue of ‘AI Strategy’. Turns out that this is now a thing that organisations want. I kind of wonder why they want it if I’m honest, but the customer is always right and all. Anyhow, it got me thinking about who owns AI in a business. So let’s take a break from thinking about executive team roles and think it through. If you believe the hype then we are entering a phase of the economy in which automation radically changes the nature of work within a generation. AI experts will doubtless splutter at the idea that automation and AI are the same thing. I’m using the former in a more general sense. Artificial intelligence algorithms automate certain classes of decisions that hitherto required a subset of human biology to accomplish. By that definition AI tools are basically the same as other IT tools. An enterprise resource planning or warehouse management system automates administration tasks that a human ...
Thoughts on strategy in a Digital Economy