Artificial intelligence
The year 2023 was marked by many technological advances, and 2024 promises to be the year when the commercial potential of generative AI will be highlighted. According to a recent Information and analysis Prosper According to a survey, today, more than half of professionals are enthusiastic about using generative AI or are already using it. Businesses around the world are now racing to unlock the value of technology, marking the start of what could be described as an AI gold rush. The question now is how to get the most out of generative AI and turn this promising technology into tangible business value. According to Fred Schonenberg, founder and CEO of VentureFuelan independent innovation consultancy, the answer lies in corporate innovation driven by partnerships rather than standard venture capital investment.
Prosper – Have you heard of generative artificial intelligence?
“If 2023 was the year of generative AI, then 2024 is the year that generative AI will be meaningfully applied to businesses. Generation AI is evolving from hype to tangible action and real value creation,” Fred said in an interview.
Generation AI clearly offers a number of lucrative opportunities. A recent McKinsey identified report as many as 60 potential use cases for generative AI, with global revenue projections of between $2 trillion and $4 trillion. The report also reveals that approximately 75% of the potential value of generative AI falls into one of four categories: customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and R&D.
When it comes to customer operations, generative AI can automate tasks that consume valuable employee time, in which their efforts could be better spent on more difficult tasks. In marketing and sales, generative AI opens the door to unprecedented levels of personalization and engagement by analyzing vast data sets and identifying patterns and preferences. Software engineering benefits from generative AI by speeding up development cycles and improving code quality. And in R&D, generative AI can act as a catalyst for innovation, simulating and modeling scenarios that provide insights for breakthroughs in product development and scientific research.
Fred explains: “Many organizations understand the use cases where they want to apply AI, but they don’t have the expertise or resources to implement it correctly. Startup partnerships allow these organizations to start on third base with existing, proven solutions that can be applied to real business challenges today and then scaled across the organization to gain a competitive advantage.
Over the past 24 months, thousands of startups leveraging generative AI to solve business challenges have emerged. In fact, a recent report from Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) Institute found that while global investment in AI declined in 2023, funding for generative AI startups has increased almost 9-fold. As Fred explains: “There are AI generation startups working on almost every business challenge that companies are looking to solve. Partnering with these fast-moving startups gives businesses immediate insight into these new technologies, but also immediate value creation by applying them to real-world use cases.
This process requires a strategic approach: identifying market opportunities, solving problems, piloting solutions and then scaling up successful initiatives. Essentially, a cycle of learning, testing, building and investing.
“Success can be achieved in many ways: through pilot projects, proof-of-concept partnerships and even accelerators such as Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs” which has recently focused on several areas of AI. These collaborations give businesses the opportunity to connect with promising startups that bring new creativity, agility and innovative solutions,” said Fred. Startups benefit from access to larger company resources, deep industry expertise, and growth opportunities through commercialization. Companies can learn and test quickly and efficiently, avoid large investments of time and money, and reduce the risks typically associated with exploring new technologies. It is a symbiotic relationship that generates significant value for both parties.
These partnerships will be even more necessary in the current context of the venture capital financing crisis, which is should continue in this year. Venture capitalists are simply not investing with the same enthusiasm as in previous years. And even though they are focusing their current efforts on AI, experts predict that a possible AI cooldown venture capital funding for AI startups will also balance out or decline. However, corporate partnerships will likely continue to drive innovation in the sector, virtually unhindered by declining funding, because companies and their customers always have new needs to satisfy and new problems to solve. It is the startups that will help solve them.
Fred said: “At VentureFuel, we are seeing incredible generational AI applications generated by the collaboration of companies and startups. For example, through the accelerator we operate for Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs, the global media and HR of a technology company the department now works with a conversational AI platform NLX to power interactions with employee inquiries through a 24/7 self-service chat option.
Another case of a generative partnership between a company and a start-up promoting innovation is the partnership between the stock agency Getty Images and the AI research start-up Runway. This collaboration provides Getty’s enterprise customers with a solution for generative video models that can be trained on the organization’s proprietary datasets. This helps enterprise users streamline the creation and personalization of high-quality content, an increasingly important consideration as businesses strive to keep pace. consumer expectations for personalized experiences in the age of AI.
As we navigate the AI gold rush, companies will continue to struggle to keep pace with industry leaders who have already adopted generative AI. “This is a technology where speed to market is important, as models learn from tests leading to exponentially compounding results. So companies that stay on the sidelines risk falling behind their peers and missing out on crucial advancements and new applications that can cost market share and relevance,” Fred said.
There is no doubt that generative AI has value for almost every business. But for those who succeed, it will be about knowing how to learn, test, build and invest with as little risk as possible to identify market opportunities and solve problems. And one of the ways established companies are doing this is by collaborating with startups, to discover in real time what works for their business. Many other organizations will soon follow suit.
