What's the most important question right now?

My best guess is most organisations are asking the right questions, however these are within the context of their business. In news, for example, they are asking how AI will drive personalisation, fluid content, content production and disintermediation. Those kind of things. But there is a risk we miss broader changes in customer behaviour, ones that span our internet experience. So, with this in mind, my question is: ‘What are the anticipated meta changes in customer behaviour and how do those impact existing strategies?’ Put another way, if I had an AI oracle on my phone working for me, what do I think it would suggest to me? This is bigger than simply how I consume content, or something that helps with shopping, or my awful admin tasks like renewing my insurance.

What really helps me at a meta system level? It’s about my AI oracle thinking about the way I interact with the internet and the way it interacts with me. I want my sanity back. I want the high quality dullness of slow time back. I want zero friction. I suspect millions, if not billions, want this kind of new ‘deal’. It’s about my phone’s AI oracle playing its role in protecting my wellbeing. It puts humans first, not business interests first. At its best, this is the trigger that moves us away from a largely ads funded internet experience with humans and their attention being the product.

Establishing and codifying these anticipated meta changes in customer behaviour is going to be key. Codifying will help test existing strategies. Customer first not AI first.

Where are we taking AI too seriously, and where not seriously enough?

Using AI to drive organisational efficiencies. In my opinion, while these are a thing, they are way overhyped, not least because they are the easiest and most quantifiable promises the AI industry can make to CEOs and investors. I’m not saying it’s not a thing, but my best guess is that, like the hype cycle around autonomous vehicles twenty years ago, it’s way too immature and imperfect. It’s worth remembering that in 2013, Morgan Stanley predicted a path to full autonomous vehicles within the decade. In 2015, Musk said Tesla was about three years from a fully autonomous car. Many major carmakers were making similar promises, with human driving expected to become nearly obsolete by 2020. None of it turned up on time. The easy, narrow use cases always show up first. The transformative stuff takes far longer than anyone selling it wants you to believe.

Not seriously enough, I go back to my previous question, but with a specific use case. When the technology is mature enough, it will become native to our phones in ways that have real value to the human holding the phone. More pointedly, the age of data ownership and privacy will finally arrive. Our agents, acting on our behalf, will take back control and our data. They will clean our digital footprint and get our data removed from organisations who leverage it. This changes everything.

What future are you looking forward to?

If I’m answering this honestly, on a personal level, relaxing out of work in semi retirement, not having to work inside a challenging, disrupted organisation with many conflicting incentives and interests. It will give me the opportunity to learn to play the ukulele. That’s going to be very tricky for someone as musically talentless as me. More broadly, a future where AI takes us beyond the peak of the current madness, where we’re confronted by an endless stream of information where the human, and their attention, is the product. My future. The future. We are on the verge of a new horizon, one that takes us all back to slow time.