As the US financial markets end on a high, it is interesting to see the influence of AI technology stocks with the likes of Google, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla central in a booming confidence for all things AI.

There are high expectations that AI will transform our world, and personally I am intrigued with Optimus, Tesla, humanoid robot. This first appeared back in 2022 and has since gone quiet. The idea was to have the AI robot operate in car manufacturing plants , essentially doing tasks that are repetitive but need skills that can deal with, for example, installing flexible hoses that bend and twist which require an ability to adjust and manipulate grip similar to a human hand. This I, Robot, theme is just one prospect that delivers a human aid outcome, however it seemingly looks like that AI is more destined to become a data analyst.

AI algorithms are data hungry and will need ever more access to data to compute outcomes, well beyond the human mind capacity to actually digest. Whilst self aware AI will be able to make their own decisions, organizations (and the people running them) are unlikely to allow the machines to achieve full ubiquity as Peter Drucker famously said;

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This means that no matter how great your product, technology or strategy, its success will be held back if there is no willingness or cultural alignment. It’s the people executing the strategy that brings it to life.

“You can have the best plan in the world, and if the culture isn’t going to let it happen, it’s going to die on the vine.”

Mark Fields, Ford America 2006

Shared values unite culture to strategy. If your company’s unique selling point is innovation, a culture based on price efficiency would not work. Our vision, values and mission – culture – determines whether a strategy will succeed or fail.

Whether it will be AI identifying a face in a crowd for potential security threats, or predicting how a stock will perform, the output will required a trained human to ratify the recommendation outcome. We have created another format where consultative ‘cognitive’ solutions will developed to ensure that the market continues to ‘pay for advice’.

In the case of driverless cars, the progress in AI has been outstanding, however most governments will not allow a fully autonomous solution without a human seated behind the steering wheel. Safety concerns have not yet been fully overcome.

From a procurement perspective, the real impact of AI is far from clear. There are numerous approaches and options to execute vision. AI ‘s impact on the procurement transaction, rather then being self-determined, is more likely to result in the procurement professional overseeing and managing the output to ensure alignment. Feeding into AI programming and system design requires a strong procurement, supply chain and business partnership understanding.

It will be interesting to see how AI develops in 2024. Happy New Year.