McKinsey: GenAI to continue to dominate business landscape

With the explosion of AI taking the world by storm in 2023, increasing numbers of businesses have looked to see if they can develop and harness the technology themselves.

McKinsey and Company has seen a wide range of innovators dominating the headlines as businesses seek to transform their operations with the power of AI. For 2024, the organisation envisions that generative AI (GenAI) will continue to take centre stage as people continue to develop new tools.

With GenAI growing exponentially worldwide, it continues to hold huge potential and enhance enterprise productivity and efficiency effects.

GenAI to achieve scale in 2024

McKinsey saw the arrival of GenAI as the largest event of 2023 when it comes to AI development. In a report it recognises how thousands of companies in every industry and in every part of the world are already using a simple GenAI interfaces to radically transform every imaginable business activity. 

In fact, McKinsey has previously suggested that the economic impact will be staggering, estimating that GenAI could add US$2.6tn to US$4.4tn to the global economy annually by 2030. This transformative potential will span various industries, according to the company, including manufacturing, finance, healthcare, retail and a range of creative industries.

However, the company also notes that - whilst innovators dominate the headlines - it is the scalers that are leading the AI market. With this in mind, McKinsey states that CEOs must figure out three things: which parts of the business can benefit, how to scale from one application to many, and how the new tools will reshape their industry.

As the digital age continues to evolve, McKinsey recognises that most companies have at least started digital and AI transformations. Despite this, few are getting the results they want. The company states that this is because they have not done the fundamental organisational rewiring needed to extract maximum value from the hard work of digitising the enterprise.

Technology priorities must include safety and regulation

In most instances companies see generative AI as a tool to augment human activities, rather than replacing them, according to McKinsey. However, in line with the company’s 2024 predictions, businesses will need to ensure that these increased numbers of businesses working on AI are doing so safely.

Ethical AI development has been much of the conversation throughout 2023, with world leaders and technology enterprises engaging in debates over how regulated AI could look. Plenty of industries have already called for greater regulation, as it is believed to increase trust with their customers.

This month (December 2023), McKinsey noted that these efforts to mitigate ‘bad AI’ are still in their infancy around the world. The company warns that governments must revise their regulations continually throughout 2024 if they want to keep pace. With some organisations having started awareness programmes among stakeholders, it is the hope that more businesses worldwide will become aware of GenAI risks and how to approach them.

Similarly, McKinsey stresses the importance of accountability for both businesses and government leaders, advising that GenAI implementations are only used to execute models and not to monitor or assess them.

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