The world has been caught grossly unprepared to meet the extraordinary challenges posed by the Covid-19 outbreak. The extreme ramifications of the global crisis have already begun to unfold. Businesses across the world are severely impacted and the global economy is heading towards what's said to be the worst global recession since World War II. Over the last few years, enterprises have been leveraging data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to draw meaningful insights and make informed decisions. In the light of the current pandemic, we are forced to wonder if things could have been any different.

I am often asked about the state of data science and where we sit now from a maturity perspective. The answer is pretty interesting, especially now that it's been more than a year since COVID-19 rendered most data science models useless -- at least for a time. COVID forced companies to make a full model jump to match the dramatic shift in daily life. Models had to be rapidly retrained and redeployed to try to make sense of a world that changed overnight. Many organizations ran into a wall, but others were able to create new data science processes that could be put into production much faster and easier than what they had before.

The developed world is on the cusp of turning the corner in the fight against COVID-19 thanks to the unprecedented effort to rapidly develop and distribute effective vaccines. Now technologists are hoping to take drug development to the next level, and AI will play a big role. One of the companies at the forefront of using machine learning and AI to develop drugs is CytoReason. The company helps pharmaceutical firms like Pfizer accelerate drug development by providing high resolution models of the human body that's infected with the disease that the drug companies are targeting. "If I told you that in 200 years, drugs would be developed in a computer, you would not be real surprised," said CytoReason CEO and founder David Harel.

As companies continue to navigate the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a range of market developments and business adaptations that impact the IT organization's future. We have seen a new push to consolidate the IT labor portfolio to drive cost synergies. Companies are looking to quickly adopt AI and automation tools to accelerate the speed of delivery and enable innovation. Clearly, IT organizations must move quickly to succeed in this new paradigm. Here are a few strategies to address these developments and pivot from survival to success, where IT organizations must take immediate, aggressive steps to adapt to the faster business and IT environment.We recommend short-term prescriptive actions related to the IT organization across these dimensions: Baselining current operations can help determine how to redeploy underutilized resources or restructure teams to support strained areas and newly reprioritized strategic initiatives.

The lockdown and other restrictions that have come along with the COVID pandemic has left businesses struggling to operate and carry day to day operations in a smooth way. With decisions such as layoffs, salary cuts or frozen hiring, the companies are struggling to make the end needs meet. While they are finding themselves in a lurch, one thing that we are continually hearing is that the digital is the future and that data science is the key driver to make a smooth transition into the post-COVID world. With remote working on the rise, business leaders are adopting digital tools, and data science models to optimise business processes, regulate the spends, measure ROI, gauge long-term business impact, and more. Companies are even looking to accelerate investment in technologies such as AI, AR, VR, cybersecurity to bring about the required transformations in the businesses.

By now, it is obvious to everyone that widespread remote working is accelerating the trend of digitization in society that has been happening for decades. What takes longer for most people to identify are the derivative trends. One such trend is that increased reliance on online applications means that cybercrime is becoming even more lucrative. For many years now, online theft has vastly outstripped physical bank robberies. Willie Sutton said he robbed banks "because that's where the money is." If he applied that maxim even 10 years ago, he would definitely have become a cybercriminal, targeting the websites of banks, federal agencies, airlines, and retailers.

Traditional factory floor practices are being reconfigured as manufacturing companies increasingly adopt automation and artificial intelligence throughout value chains in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. "We are in an environment that is getting more and more volatile every day," said Siemens India MD Sunil Mathur, panelist at The Economic Times Back to Business Dialogues on the theme of Automating Business, Accelerating Growth. "At the same time, customers are becoming even more demanding. The challenge that most manufacturing companies are facing is how to balance these two." If procurement and retail are managed digitally, AI can analyse the data for better demand prediction.

In Thailand, via the Digital Council of Thailand (DCT), C.P. Group and True Corporation is working alongside other Council members to launch digital platforms and applications to help source medical supply donations as well as to track, trace and contain the spread of COVID-19. We have also been working with HG Robotics to deploy robotic solutions at 41 hospitals around the country to enhance communications between medical professionals and patients under quarantine. Each robot can help reduce actual physical contact by up to 70 cases per day.

Technology and artificial intelligence which were previously seen as a threat are now part of the solution to problems created by the coronavirus pandemic, according to technology analyst Josep Lluís Micó. La revolución digital en la época del coronavirus in its original Spanish title), tells Efe that digital change has been accelerated exponentially by Covid-19, which has posed a major challenge for science, shaken the most advanced economies and turned everyone's lives upside down. QUESTION: What do you think about the European Union's attitude towards AI before the pandemic? It was planning to limit its activity in areas such as health. Do you think that scenario will be affected by the pandemic?

Rabindranath Tagore once said, "Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark". The darkness that looms over the world at this moment is the curse of the COVID-19 pandemic, while the bird of human freedom finds itself caged under lockdown, unable to fly. Enthused by the beacon of hope, human beings will soon start picking up the pieces of a shared future for humanity, but perhaps, it will only be to find a new, unfamiliar world order with far-reaching consequences for us that transcend society, politics and economy. Crucially, a technology that had till now been crawling -- or at best, walking slowly -- will now start sprinting. In fact, a paradigm shift in the economic relationship of mankind is going to be witnessed in the form of accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the modes of production of goods and services.