The Techno-Decade’s Challenges & Opportunities When Old Strategies Don’t work – Part III
In this high-velocity Techno-Decade no industry is being left untouched. But while human-kind innovates to build new resilience to its business models, nature is unleashing new forces of climate change that we must find an answer to.
The Techno-Creative Age
As Generative AI democratised artificial intelligence Adobe found that its existing business model was threatened as the business of majority of its users, the creative individuals and studios were feeling the heat of AI generated content. The company responded by integrating Generative AI capabilities into its Creative Cloud, including Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro. This technology simplifies tasks like compositing images into backgrounds and mapping graphics to video elements, enhancing the creative process by automating complex and time-consuming tasks.
Zomato explored Generative AI in 2023 to enhance customer-facing elements and backend tools for personalising interactions and optimising operations. Through partnerships with Microsoft Azure and the introduction of Zomato AI, an intelligent foodie companion, Zomato is utilising Generative AI to improve user experiences and streamline operations.
Reskilling People
Companies should evaluate their data capabilities to ensure they have a scalable and reliable source of unique and valuable data. Building custom datasets for narrow use cases can enhance the performance of Generative AI models and drive stronger, more reliable results. Generative AI’s biggest impact will be on job roles. Companies will be faced with the tough choice of how to manage their workforce. They need to proactively identify new roles required for co-piloting with AI, define job descriptions, and assess whether existing employees can be trained for these roles or if new external hires are necessary.
The Fall of the Creative Bastion
In this high-velocity Techno-Decade no industry is being left untouched. A few years ago, forecasters said that human creativity was the final bastion that would survive the onslaught of technology. Last year, this fortress was breached. Oscar winner actress Michelle Yeoh signed a contract with a company called Canny AI to allow them to use her image in their AI-powered platform. This means that Canny AI will be able to use Yeoh’s likeness to create realistic images of her in different poses, expressions, and even with different hairstyles and makeup. Canny AI will pay her a fee each time they use her AI avatar.
In that very same week, Meryl Streep, nominated for a record 21 Academy Awards, more than any other actor in history, and among five actors to have won three competitive acting Oscars, joined the picket lines in the US as a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), protesting against use of artificial intelligence disrupting actors and writers. They are preparing for another industrial action as Sora, a text-to-video AI tool has shaken up the industry with spectacular video clips that rival the one produced by the best studios.
An Apocalyptic Climate Change
As human-kind innovates to build new resilience to its business models, nature is unleashing new forces of climate change that we must find an answer to. So far, most countries have failed to meet their sustainability goals. It can result in economic challenges such as increased costs associated with environmental damage, extreme weather events, and health impacts, affecting industries and economies.
We are already witnessing the effects of extreme weather in every country. In 2023, drought and deluge played havoc with our agriculture in India. This sector, which accounts for 45% of our employment but generating only 16%-17% of the GDP, reported a sharp fall in output. The impact of a rural economic slowdown has had a cascading effect on the bottom-lines of FMCG companies. For the first time in many years, tractor sales have declined by nearly 17% in February 2024.
According to Morgan Stanley, climate-related disasters cost the world $650 billion from 2016-2018. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) puts the cost of achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, in a way compatible with Paris, at $6.9 trillion a year, to 2030. And a 2019 World Bank estimate suggests the necessary global infrastructure investment would cost $90 trillion by 2030.
Climatologists and environment scientists are raising the alarm of a potential collapse of the Gulf Stream current by 2025 that could have severe consequences for Earth’s climate, causing temperatures to plummet, ocean ecosystems to collapse, and storms to proliferate globally. These currents work like an endless global conveyor belt moving oxygen, nutrients, carbon and heat around the globe. A disruption can bring about apocalyptic extreme weather. We can only hope that we are able to find a solution quickly enough.
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