Editions 1-2 of a multi-part series by James Goll

FALLING FOR HYPE OR FALLING BEHIND?

You’ve heard the reports, 77% of companies today are using AI:

✅ Fact or Fiction? ❌

FIRST OFF, if your work has you in the trenches of Silicon Valley, spending your days competing against your fellow tech giants for AI dominance?  If so, keep scrolling, this isn’t the best newsletter for you, and you know much more than I’ll be sharing anyway.

AI FOR THE REST OF US:

Okay, now that it’s just us, the other 99% of corporate America, if all the hysteria around AI has you riddled with anxiety, RELAX. The stress you might feel is certainly understandable.

Especially given last week’s CrowdStrike debacle, it’s more apparent than ever how dependent on technology we’ve become.

In this series, I hope to clear up misconceptions, provide factual information without the hype, and instill the confidence needed to make informed decisions for you and your teams.

With these truths and sound reasoning, you'll be on your way towards Future-Proofing.

FACT CHECK: “77% OF COMPANIES ARE ALREADY USING AI” ✅ ❌

While the recent introduction of LLMs (Large Language Models), like ChatGPT, have already brought amazing convenience, speed, and increased productivity with certain tasks, even this isn’t “true AI.”

I certainly won’t go as far as to say that the AI buzz is all a bunch of hype. The recent progress made in machine learning and the potential for the future is nothing less than amazing.

BUT, if you’re among the majority, your day is more focused on keeping teams from going rogue and maintaining brand loyalty than it is peering into a crystal ball to predict how AI is going to affect the future.

Take a breath, you’re not running behind the bus with a typewriter, and your situation is more common than mainstream media may have you believe. It's reported that as little as 3% of companies have started with complex machine learning.

ARE YOUR TEAMS FUTURE-PROOF?

Again, even though platforms like ChatGPT aren't technically AI by computer scientist's definitions, this still doesn’t mean it’s all hype.

But if you or your company hasn’t made significant strides to plan for AI implementation, again, Relaxxx, you're far from the minority.

THE REAL TRUTH BEHIND AI HYPE

We've discussed the hype around media reports that cite “Over 75% of companies are already using AI,” and the recent Upwork Survey that found 77% of employees feel that AI has increased their workload.

While it’s absolutely true that Generative AI and LLMs like ChatGPT are delivering amazingly impressive and unprecedented opportunities...

Much of the hype & chatter out there has been striking fear on two main points:

• 1) AI is coming for our jobs.
• 2) If you keep your job, prepare to be sitting in cubes next to cyborgs.

THIS SCIENCE FICTION SCENARIO could certainly be the case one day, but, unless you’re in the thick of things at one of the 6-8 big-tech giants, you’re not going to be able to haze new cyborg coworkers into fetching your Starbucks.

SO, IF MILLIONS OF COMPANIES AREN’T ALREADY RUNNING ON AI, WHY SO MUCH HYPE?

Why is AI all you seem to hear about these days? Why are Microsoft AI, Google Premium AI, Apple, Meta, and other big dawgs relentlessly touting their latest developments, with promises to improve 10x within X amount of years, or even months?

This might surprise you, but it all boils down to Money & Power.

Yes, shocking, I know. We’ll get more into this in the future, but essentially:

1. All those big dawgs want to be the Top Dawg, and
2. Wall Street expects these companies to continue releasing groundbreaking products that will drive the 20% yearly growth they’ve become accustomed to.

"The AI hype surrounding the Tech sector is real and likely to propel future growth for many stocks within the space," BMO Capital Markets Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski wrote in last year's June 2023 US Strategy Snapshot report.

This doesn’t mean things won’t be starting to change soon, but the point of this newsletter is to quell some of the fears, ease the hysteria, and help us ‘Average Joes’ understand what we can truly expect and how to best prepare our companies, teams, and brands to be future-proof (or at least future-ready!)

TIME FOR PLANNING: BUILDING A BRIDGE

The good news is that since you’re not behind, you now have the time to start making a plan to future-proof your teams, which includes alternative opportunities for growth in the event that AI is not all it's cracked up to be.

Many companies are working to tap into, or hire, someone with a multi-dimensional understanding and the ability to organize a plan to identify opportunities, costs, and risks, of streamlining certain tasks with applied learning and next-gen tech tools.

Ideally, this person or team can also serve as the bridge between traditional initiatives—potentially managed by those who've been keeping things afloat and are less aware of next-gen opportunities—and new strategies, ensuring a seamless and hysteria-free integration.

This is one of the first steps for what we're referring to as future-proofing, which we'll detail in the next update.

Which are you?

Someone who wants immediate ACCESS to everything big-tech has in the works, or do you feel that launching products before they are truly ready is driven by the quest for DOMINANCE or WALL STREET stock bumps?