In 1949, Dr. Claude Shannon of MIT built a homemade computer that could play chess. Sure, it could only handle six pieces and required fifteen seconds to make a move, but it played chess. This was a watershed event in the history of computers. Why? Because for many, it was an “aha!” moment that showed computers were something more than merely programmable number crunchers. This shift in thinking, which seems so obvious to us today, marked the beginning of the modern computer age.
As much of a visionary as he was, even Shannon would no doubt be surprised at how computers have permeated the world. Literally no one knows how many there are in the world. You likely own hundreds of microprocessors, each quietly performing some function that makes your life a little better.
But as transformative as this technology has been so far, we have only seen a warm-up act for what is about to happen due to the power of artificial intelligence. In just a decade or so, people will look back at our time and see our belief that we lived in the “computer age” as kind of quaint. The difference between what those hundred microprocessors do for you today compared to what they will be able to do when they are animated by the power of AI is unfathomable from today’s vantage point.
What is certain is this: AI will transform everything–every business, every department, every job, everything. Each of the thousands of daily decisions that you make or that are made on your behalf will become dramatically better in a world of artificial intelligence. The cumulative effect that this will have on your life, as well as on the planet as a whole, dwarfs the imagination.
At Gigaom, our mission is to provide enterprises with information and analysis to help them make better decisions about technology. Given this mission, you can understand why we are so excited about AI. It exists to help us make better decisions.
We believe that the rapid adoption of AI by enterprises is essential to their success. AI is as profound in its implications as electricity, and just as one cannot imagine a business deciding not to use not electricity or taking a “wait and see” attitude about it, companies that don’t rethink every department on their org chart in light of this new technology are at risk at being displaced by their more agile competitors. Technologies like AI are double-edged swords: On the one hand, adopting them will lead to vast increases in efficiency and profitability. On the other hand, it gives those same benefits to all of your competitors as well. With technologies as transformative as AI, it is a race to see who can implement them the best and fastest.
Because of this, we have created and launched Gigaom AI Labs to help organizations implement this technology today. We will work directly with our clients on projects that implement AI in ways that will deliver measurable results. From strategy to coding to rollout, we will be with our clients every step of the way.
If you have a project in mind for your organization that could be enhanced with artificial intelligence, perhaps we can work together on it. Drop us an email at ai@gigaom.com with the basics and let’s start a conversation.