Should you follow the information on artificial intelligence, you will discover two diverging threads. The press and theatre often portray AI using human capacities, mass unemployment, and also a potential robot apocalypse. Scientific conventions, on the other hand, talk progress toward artificial general intelligence when acknowledging that present AI is feeble and not capable of lots of the fundamental elements of the human mind. But no matter where they stand compared to human intellect, now's AI algorithms have become a defining element for several businesses, such as healthcare, finance, production, transport, and a lot more. And quite soon"no area of human endeavor will Stay independent of artificial intelligence," as Harvard Business School professors Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani describe in their publication Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World.

If you follow the news on artificial intelligence, you'll find two diverging threads. The media and cinema often portray AI with human-like capabilities, mass unemployment, and a possible robot apocalypse. Scientific conferences, on the other hand, discuss progress toward artificial general intelligence while acknowledging that current AI is weak and incapable of many of the basic functions of the human mind. But regardless of where they stand in comparison to human intelligence, today's AI algorithms have already become a defining component for many sectors, including health care, finance, manufacturing, transportation, and many more. And very soon "no field of human endeavor will remain independent of artificial intelligence," as Harvard Business School professors Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani explain in their book Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World.

In the book Competing in the Age of AI, authors Iansiti and Lakhani argue that simple AI is already ... [ ] fundamentally changing business processes and is simpler to implement than at first glance Artificial Intelligence is the new fashionable trend in business. While many large corporates create skunkworks for experimental technologies or acquire startups, few incumbent businesses have allowed AI processes to change the core of the organization. This could be because executives in traditional businesses have little understanding of how these technologies work and are unwilling to take the risk of investing in something they do not understand. A recent book by two Harvard Business School professors attempts to deal with this issue. Competing in the Age of AI: strategy and leadership when algorithms and networks run the world presents a compelling case for putting AI at the center of the business.

Iansiti and Lakhani have written an important book that explains what's required to rethink the firm and become an AI-first company. Anyone interested in the impact of AI should read this book.

"The attention around AI tends to focus on the latest technologies," Iansiti argues, "but the firms that are thriving have harnessed the subtle, inherent power of AI to break down traditional operational constraints, capture new value, and accelerate growth and innovation." What sets AI-driven firms apart is their ability to avoid the inefficiencies and bottlenecks that plague growth when complexity -- primarily caused by humans -- outstrips organizational capacity. These firms strive to construct a model for operational execution that does not require human intervention (ideally, no real-time "human bottlenecks"). In the new digital operating model, most operational tasks circumvent humans entirely. The ultimate aim is to automate and digitize as many operational processes as possible to take advantage of digital reliability and scalability.

The road to digital transformation is paved with AI. As hard as it is to believe, artificial intelligence (AI) was rarely mentioned in the discussions related to digital transformation that began almost a decade ago. Now, no mention of transformation would make sense without how AI is making it all possible. The intertwining of digital transformation and AI is the subject of an upcoming book by Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani, both Harvard University professors. In their new book, Competing in the Age of AI, they look at successful digitally savvy enterprises across the globe, and how they do things differently.