GenAI has taken a leading role in supporting and enhancing activities, drawing on cognitive functions in many facets of our society. Unlike the robotic revolution that impacted mostly blue-collar workers in the manufacturing and assembly industries of the end of the 20th century, GenAI has most directly impacted white-collar and creative workers over the past year.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT was the first major GenAI out of the gate in late 2022. It started an avalanche of entries in the field from start-ups to the leading large tech corporations of Microsoft, Google, Meta, IBM, and more. Now, with more than 100 million weekly users, as well as more than 92 per cent of the Fortune 500 companies,9 OpenAI remains in the lead of this massive movement to integrate artificial intelligence in nearly all aspects of business, industry, and commerce.
In one of the earliest academic studies of the implementation of GenAI, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, and MIT collaborated to analyse the impact of making the ChatGPT tool available to 758 consultants at the prestigious Boston Consulting Group. Given 18 realistic consulting tasks, the GenAI-equipped consultants, who used GPT-4, completed on average 12.2 per cent more tasks, 25.1 per cent more rapidly. Additionally, 40 per cent of the trial group were judged to have produced higher-quality results.19
Based on more than 4,700 interviews of business executives at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year, 46 per cent of the leaders believed that GenAI would boost profits in 2024. Also, 25 per cent of the chief executives expected GenAI to lead to headcount reductions of at least 5 per cent this year.7
Clearly, GenAI has the potential to be a gamechanger in the coming year. In this article, we will examine a number of the key changes, challenges, and opportunities that can be expected by the end of the year.
