Like many others, we see step-change advantages for our clients in the use of Generative AI over the pre-AI technologies, and it is now core to our development efforts. The benefits of harnessing AI are so huge that it is very difficult from an opportunity cost perspective to justify anything else. However, one of the questions we get asked consistently is whether this represents a pivot away from our previous priorities and, if so, what was wrong with our products to date.
It is a fair question, which I struggled to articulate the answer to for a while, but then I came across the quote below through the newsletter of Angular Ventures. And the analogy is very helpful in explaining how AI can help companies achieve their goals without needing to change their strategic priorities.
Suppose you think about a car as a solution to getting people from A to B. In that case, the internal combustion engine is a game changer in how you can address the problem, but only when the engine is combined with a “horseless carriage”. All the other components are critical as well; the drive train, tires, windscreen and even Collision Damage Waivers.
Speaking for Passle, we have always focused on delivering the best possible thought leadership platform for busy professionals and, the most important engine that AI brings to our clients is phenomenal levels of personalization at scale. Relevance has always been the Achilles heel of digital publishing, in that everyone can publish, while no one has the time or inclination to read all the content produced. Putting the right information (and only the small amount that is truly relevant) in front of your reader is critical and extremely difficult. AI can help solve this issue.
It does seem to be a helpful construct when thinking about how AI can potentially help any organization, not to think about what you can do with a shiny new engine so much as how you can get from where you are to where you want to be and whether AI is a useful component in that vehicle.
The analogy also helps answer whether AI will make Passle different or if we are going to be the same? The answer is yes, in both cases.