Jeremy Kahn, Fortune's AI editor, argues in the October 6 Eye on AI newsletter that value from AI in large companies depends on people, not technology. He draws on Fortune's inaugural AIQ Summit at the New York Stock Exchange. The thesis and several asides are his opinion.
The data he cites
ServiceNow's Diana David, titled forward-deployed futurist, said 57% of Pacesetters, the top fifth on ServiceNow's Enterprise AI Maturity Index, invest in upskilling employees versus 4% of other companies, and 68% plan to attract, hire and retain AI talent versus 10% of others. Pacesetters are more likely to have a long-term HR strategy for AI and to have assessed AI skills across the organization. Fortune's AIQ List methodology is based partly on ServiceNow's five-pillar index.
What speakers said
Futurist Amy Webb said large companies suffer from learned helplessness and under-train staff, comparing this to taxi drivers reliant on GPS, and that it is not about being AI native. Drew Holler, chief human resources officer at Lennar, said: “We're going to give you all the tools, but it's your responsibility to upskill yourself as well.” Danielle Gonzalez, chief people officer at Palo Alto Networks, said the company uses observable interviews and hackathons to assess candidates and is “looking for agency.” Runway COO Michelle Kwon said the AI startup buys off-the-shelf SaaS for payments and HR compliance: “We are not going to build our own payment system.”
Kahn's opinions
Kahn writes that SaaS replacement fears from earlier this year were clearly overblown, that Sam Altman's risk tradeoff basically comes down to a pitch to trust him, and that AI's measurable benefits so far are precious few.
The risk debate
The newsletter notes Altman said the world should accept some bad outcomes for AI's benefits, while former OpenAI safety researcher David Robinson wrote that iterative deployment guarantees periodic failures and Miles Brundage said he regretted popularizing the approach. The newsletter also carries a roundup of other news items that this summary does not independently verify.
Source: Fortune. This is an AI Business Watch summary of the original newsletter.