Embracing Innovation in the Era of AI: Redefining the Possible

Any idea or inspiration, big or small, can turn into scalable innovation that fosters growth, improves efficiency, supports wellbeing, and advances productivity.

It's one of Dell Technologies's core beliefs and motivates the company's relentless innovation to drive human progress for business and societal ‘shared value’ over the last 40 years ✅

When it comes to GenAI and innovation, this technology has the capacity to be ‘the accelerator of the decade’ and expectations are high, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution— what works for one organisation may not work for others. Each business should match its GenAI solution to its objectives, which could mean a small solution, a large one, or indeed one that grows as goals and capacities change.

When you're starting on a new journey with any technology, it's almost always worth starting small; Elliot and I are both advocates of testing the water through sandboxing. Eventually, though, we're all going to have to get our heads around the fact that GenAI is here to stay and will become a vital cog in operations. It can, of course, help with traditional use cases with incremental gains, like reducing risk and costs or improving efficiency. But the real magic, the beauty, the thing that sets GenAI apart from anything we've seen before, is that it can enable business processes that could never possibly exist before🪄

At Dell Technologies World, Michael Dell illustrated this tipping point in our understanding of GenAI by drawing a parallel with past innovations. In the early days of factories, water or wind powered a wheel, and it was the wheel that did the work 🛞 Then, with the advent of electricity, what did they do? They used electricity to power the wheel. It took years before they fully harnessed the potential of electricity, automating tasks with purpose-built machines that no longer required a wheel. We don't want to use GenAI to power the wheel. Because the possibilities are far, far greater than that.

The scale of opportunity with GenAI is hard to comprehend - we're looking at once impossible use cases, even with the collective power of hundreds of humans. We are unleashing technology that will accelerate scientific discovery and development with the power to transform our organisations, our lives, and our world. When organisations tune into that way of thinking - when they stop seeing the confines of the wheel - then they can start to unlock the true potential of GenAI, paving the way for a future, an expanded future, of unprecedented growth and perpetual, scalable innovation.

Of course, it's understandable that when people hear that, the FOMO can kick in. According to the latest Dell Technologies Innovation Catalysts Research, while 75% of UK respondents see AI as a game-changer for industries, 41% are grappling with the rapid pace of change and are uncertain about the future. Just the very concept of such a massive opportunity can be daunting, which can either lead to rushed decision-making or, even worse, the innovation-sapping inertia of no decision-making at all.

To avoid costly mistakes or analysis paralysis, explicitly defining use cases makes it easier to right-size your model and avoid wasting resources on one that is larger than you require. In the world of AI, every organisation's needs are distinct. To pinpoint those needs, customers should begin by asking themselves, "What am I trying to accomplish? How many users? How much data do I have?" From there, they can determine the role they want AI to play; is it content generation or code generation? Or for visual content or language? As just a few examples. Next, they can define what kind of model to use - is it fine-tuning? Is it RAG? Is it a pre-trained model? By starting with what you're trying to accomplish, and reflecting along the way - rather than unquestioningly jumping on the AI bandwagon - you can ensure you do not over-provision and instead get the solution you need that matches your objectives.

Right now, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ in terms of GenAI innovation opportunities lies in areas that are heavy in text processing. The healthcare industry is a great example. Think of all the notes that get taken, the test results, the analysis – that’s an awful lot of text to process for a human. For lots of humans, in fact. GenAI can summarise a hundred meetings, answer questions about the content of a thousand tests, and identify patterns and anomalies in a million patients. That kind of capacity means an efficient and streamlined service for patients and a lighter administrative load for healthcare workers, releasing time for higher order work activities including training. You can see Elliot discuss this in more detail below! 

The financial service industry is also a fascinating example of where GenAI can support potentially vulnerable people. GenAI could be used to identify customers who might be at risk of, say, defaulting on a payment – in advance. A real-time, early warning system based on up-to-the-minute data could enable support to be put in place even before a change in any exhibited behaviour.

We both believe this represents a powerful opportunity for positive change in banking and preventing financial exclusion. GenAI is much less susceptible to bias or drift than machine learning, for example, which makes the data more likely to be accurate and those potentially vulnerable people better protected. You can see me discuss this in more detail below! 

The research also suggests a high degree of confidence in GenAI's potential to create competitive advantage – 75% believe AI and GenAI will significantly transform their industry. However, the research also suggests a shortfall in investment in the areas necessary to make it a success. For example, only 46% are training or upskilling employees to use new technology such as GenAI, 44% are providing intelligent technology to improve the work experience, and only 18% are planning to create a dedicated budget for AI projects. This 'intention/action gap' is a potential innovation killer. While we are still only in the beginning stages of the AI revolution, organisations should start to account for significant future investments to avoid falling behind.

However, big budgets and dedicated teams aren't prerequisites for innovation! Imagine a small chain of 🍕pizza restaurants 🍕– a small operation rather than a tech behemoth. This business may not have the resources for complex IT systems, but it can absolutely be agile and demonstrate innovation. They can use GenAI to analyse leftover ingredients in a particular restaurant and create a new pizza topping. They can create a name, an image, a price, and a webpage, all with the objective of providing customers with a product that tastes good and promotes more sustainable practices. This example of shared value impact through GenAI not only reduces waste but also turns resource constraints into a unique selling point, attracts customers and fosters employee engagement.

In today’s ‘Age of Tech Convergence’ GenAI is poised to revolutionise all industries, making an organisation's readiness to embrace this change a key determinant of its success. Embracing GenAI and fostering an innovative culture is an exciting journey, replete with opportunities for growth and learning across the board. With the right mindset, tools, strategy, process, skills, investment and ecosystem, businesses can transform challenges into opportunities and uncertainty into success. GenAI is a catalyst for innovation, driving businesses to new heights in efficiency, productivity, wellbeing, sustainability and overall performance – and enabling a reimagining of the possible.

Authors: Elliott Young, CTO at Dell Technologies EMEA and Sally Eaves, UK Senator, WBAF and CEO Tomorrow's Tech Today.