Whatever you think of the confab at Davos each year, they do attempt to tackle some interesting topics. One of the big ones in recent years has been the position and future of humans (or humanity in general) in a world of increasingly intelligent machines.
Timed with this year’s conference, Accenture released their new report, Reworking the Revolution. The coverage of this report was incredible – it was hard to miss in the media – and I highly recommend reading the full report when you have an hour to spare.
Unlike the Elon Musk “existential threat” perspective, the Accenture report takes an optimistic view of how “an alliance between humans and machines will usher in a new era of work and drive competitive advantage.”
My key takeaway from this important research is that enterprises are (finally) beginning to think about the implications of human-machine collaboration – usually as part of a larger digital transformation initiative. Most don’t have specific programs in place yet – but the path ahead is becoming obvious.
To quote Accenture, “While just over half of all employers acknowledge that getting human-machine collaboration right is critical to achieving their goals, few have adopted a systematic approach to unlock the value that lies at the intersection of people and intelligent machines.”
But, for those that do, Accenture predicts a “38% REVENUE BOOST [capitalization theirs] estimated over the next five years for those fully committing to AI and investing in human-machine collaboration.”
In previous tech revolutions, computers assisted people. The next revolution is about actual ‘collaboration’ between humans and machines. Given that, I believe Accenture’s forecast is very conservative. How about you?
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