The CTO view on AI: business critical or hype monster?

Nicholas Ismail Nicholas Ismail
September 17, 2019 AI & Machine Learning

here's been a lot of excitement around AI and some real progress has been made. But, there is also a lot of hype surrounding the technology 

The CTO view on AI: business critical or hype monster? image

How should the CTO respond to AI?

How does the CTO view AI?

As the people who will be leading AI integration, CTOs must be well versed in both the technology’s potential and its shortcomings.

Across sectors, but especially in tech, there’s a real sense of excitement around AI and CTOs (in other industries like finance, healthcare, marketing and retail) would be foolish to ignore it. In the last five years, there has also been some real progress in this space — the technology is ready to disrupt at scale, claim the AI vendors and third parties.

Or is it? According to Christian Beedgen, CTO and co-founder at Sumo Logic, AI — as the industry knows it — should, in fact, be described as a neural network or deep learning technology. True AI, artificial general intelligence, is not here yet and as such, when organisations promote their AI products, it can be misleading. Indeed, it was recently reported that 40% of Europe’s artificial intelligence start-ups do not actually use the technology, but use its hype to attract large investment.

 "What is artificial intelligence? Defining it in business — a CTO guide"

In this guide, seven CTOs and AI experts provide their view on what is artificial intelligence; and how they define the technology in the context of business. Read here

 "What industries will AI impact the most in the next few years — a CTO guide"

In this guide, seven CTOs and AI experts provide their view on what industries will be most impacted by artificial intelligence. Read here

 "Integrating artificial intelligence: Best practice tips — a CTO guide"

In this guide, six CTOs and AI experts provide their best practice tips on integrating AI into internal operations and external facing products. Read here

AI vendor hype

What’s the issue? Vendors are almost “beating organisations over the head, saying; ‘unless you run your business on our artificial intelligence, you’re not going to be able to compete'”, says Beedgen.

He continues: “it’s not clear to me how all of these things around AI are going to play out in reality, but those who propose adding AI to a business will improve everything across the board… it’s essentially, bulls**t.”

Beedgen thinks that CTOs have caught onto this. They now know that when they attend a large conference, there will be hundreds of vendors pitching ‘the next big thing’, when in fact, it’s just a bunch of black box marketing. The results of implementing these products and solutions is very much “to be decided”.

There’s no such thing as magic AI, or a silver bullet, and just because there’s lots of new AI/ML/deep learning techniques, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these can help organisations on a day-to-day basis run a business better.

Etienne Greeff, CTO and founder of SecureData, shares this view. Here, he references AI’s role in cyber: “In cyber security and in application security, there’s actually no known application of AI. There’s no autonomous agent that automatically defines threats; that does not happen yet, and it’s not very close to happening.”

But, this doesn’t mean the technology should be dismissed altogether. There is still reason to be excited, but expectations must be managed, especially in security and enterprise software domains.

“With my CTO mindset, I do get excited about new technology. And, despite my scepticism around the hype, I am excited about AI” — Beedgen

Kalyan Kumar, CVP and chief technology officer at HCL Technologies, weighs in on the debate and agrees that AI should be on fellow CTOs’ radar.

He says: “Businesses should have key AI technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, natural language generation, text analytics, robotics, and vision AI on their radars. AI carries the potential to fundamentally transform business by giving a competitive edge to the organisation.

“Ultimately, however, businesses must remember that AI projects are long-term implementations — there are no shortcuts or plug-and-play options. They, therefore, require careful planning and dedicated focus and vision for each project being implemented. Any AI initiative should be undertaken in phases or milestones. A step-by-step approach is vital if businesses want to reap the rewards of AI, which can include various types of benefits besides just cost savings.”

The CTO and AI: think about outcomes

It’s clear the umbrella of artificial intelligence has advanced in areas like machine learning, which is already impacting areas such as image recognition, something Beedgen identifies as one of the biggest current viable use cases of AI-based technology.

Any CTO looking at the technology will have to do two things;

1. Define a relatively narrow use case — ‘what problem will AI help me solve’, they should ask?
2. Focus on making sure there is enough data, and the right kind of data, to support that use case.

CTOs, ultimately, need to think about outcomes, rather than just cost reduction and reducing headcount. Katie Gibbs, head of AI, BJSS, said: “A lot of conversations we’re having at the moment are where companies are saying we need to automate in order to reduce headcount by 20%. And actually that’s a very short-term view to take, considering that if, internally, employees in the organisation are afraid about the next bit of technology that’s coming in because their job is going to get cut, it makes for a very disengaged workforce and a difficult place to work — that comes through in customer experience and user experience on the other side.”

AI can absolutely drive value, but to be a success, CTOs need to look at how they can combine the business’ employees — who have got all the context of best practices and knowledge of the organisation — with the technology. It’s important the results are felt on the ground, by the employees. These individuals are the experts who monitor and manage the AI systems that almost report into them. “This is a really great way to take employees on that AI journey and really invest in the employee value proposition as well — don’t just look to replace people, look at investing in your workforce to enable this automated future,” suggested Gibbs.

Business critical or hype monster?

It’s evident that there is a lot of hype in the AI market, with vendors pushing their ‘unique’ solution to end-user organisations, desperate not to fall foul of disruption. It seems that we’re at the inflated expectations stage on the hype cycle.

But, as more use cases emerge and the technology matures, AI — in a variety of forms (see below) — will become a critical asset to organisations. In the meantime, CTOs must manage their workforce and board’s expectations of what the technology can offer, and what impact it will have on their organisation and customers.

The hype cycle for emerging technologies in 2019. Source: Gartner

  • Experfy Insights

    Top articles, research, podcasts, webinars and more delivered to you monthly.

  • Nicholas Ismail

    Tags
    Artificial Intelligence
    Leave a Comment
    Next Post
    These 4 Major Shifts Will Drive The 21st Century

    These 4 Major Shifts Will Drive The 21st Century

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    More in AI & Machine Learning
    AI & Machine Learning,Future of Work
    AI’s Role in the Future of Work

    Artificial intelligence is shaping the future of work around the world in virtually every field. The role AI will play in employment in the years ahead is dynamic and collaborative. Rather than eliminating jobs altogether, AI will augment the capabilities and resources of employees and businesses, allowing them to do more with less. In more

    5 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »
    AI & Machine Learning
    How Can AI Help Improve Legal Services Delivery?

    Everybody is discussing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and some legal professionals are already leveraging these technological capabilities.  AI is not the future expectation; it is the present reality.  Aside from law, AI is widely used in various fields such as transportation and manufacturing, education, employment, defense, health care, business intelligence, robotics, and so

    5 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »
    AI & Machine Learning
    5 AI Applications Changing the Energy Industry

    The energy industry faces some significant challenges, but AI applications could help. Increasing demand, population expansion, and climate change necessitate creative solutions that could fundamentally alter how businesses generate and utilize electricity. Industry researchers looking for ways to solve these problems have turned to data and new data-processing technology. Artificial intelligence, in particular — and

    3 MINUTES READ Continue Reading »

    About Us

    Incubated in Harvard Innovation Lab, Experfy specializes in pipelining and deploying the world's best AI and engineering talent at breakneck speed, with exceptional focus on quality and compliance. Enterprises and governments also leverage our award-winning SaaS platform to build their own customized future of work solutions such as talent clouds.

    Join Us At

    Contact Us

    1700 West Park Drive, Suite 190
    Westborough, MA 01581

    Email: support@experfy.com

    Toll Free: (844) EXPERFY or
    (844) 397-3739

    © 2023, Experfy Inc. All rights reserved.