Walt Mayo, chief executive officer, expert.ai. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated the headlines of late. Every day, a new breakthrough is reported, furthering the notion that new AI-enabled capabilities are poised to revolutionize the enterprise. Despite many of these claims having no obvious business application, the pomp and circumstance around them have successfully captured the attention of the C-suite. Where AI was once considered a bleeding-edge capability, a growing number now see it as a business imperative and a necessary part of their technology toolkit.

RPA and AI undoubtedly create efficiencies, but with those efficiencies comes an added human responsibility: monitoring results and ejecting, if not preventing, biases. It is clear that 2020 will bring forth a tipping point in enterprise adoption of smart automation – artificially intelligent software bots that work with human workers to automate manual, repetitive tasks. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of U.S. businesses were already using this technology in daily operations. As businesses and governments continue to respond to the pandemic and the economic aftermath, automation will be even more pivotal as the pace of maturity accelerates, and the global economy reacts to it. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, automation and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will lead as many as 375 million workers, or roughly 14 percent of the global workforce, to reskill themselves by 2030 – more applicable than before as industries look to speed their recovery.

In Investment Management, we are just getting a grasp on this social media thing, marketing automation, and trying to simplify to an investor what Alts are –and I want you to concern yourself with something out, on the horizon? We are typically late to the party with bleeding edge marketing capabilities –a blessing and a curse. We let other industries test and learn while warming Compliance up to fancy newish "toys." We are pardoned time of these means to engage with investors and/or Financial Advisors but when leadership or sales partners get hip to these channels, we play catch-up with aggressive deadlines. Not to mention the impact to our brand with not having parity with our friends in other categories.