Jenna Butler is an adjunct professor at Bellevue College, Bellevue, WA, in the radiation therapy department and is a senior applied research scientist at Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA. Catherine Yeh is a senior at Williams College, Williamson, MA, USA, where she studies computer science and cognitive science.

Organizations have experienced "two years' worth of digital transformation in two months," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said earlier this year. Much of this change has centered on cloud adoption, which has been a key part of supporting the shift to work-from-home environments. Gunter Ollmann, chief security officer for Microsoft's Cloud and AI Security division, saw the redesign of access to corporate assets and the cloudification of on-premises assets as more businesses decided to work remotely in the long term. While end-user security has improved throughout the acceleration, a few security gaps remain that still need to be addressed. "The digital transformation has added a whole other layer to the environment that has to be managed and secured," Ollmann said in an Interop Digital keynote interview with Dark Reading executive editor Kelly Jackson Higgins.

Machine learning is already actively increasing employment opportunities for job applicants across the world, while AI could soon eliminate repetitive work entirely – allowing businesses more time to train workers to pick up more skilled tasks. The appeal of remote work is increasing exponentially worldwide. Although companies have been somewhat slower in embracing remote work, the COVID-19 pandemic has inadvertently showcased how technology can allow employees to operate at similar levels of productivity with ease – despite being outside of their workplace. With COVID-19 forcing more workers than ever to set up offices in their own home, will office life ever be the same again for workforces? Could both AI and machine learning really sustain a working from home (WFH) culture for more companies?

When it comes to leading in this moment, a lot of information is swirling around on the topic of how to work from home or how to lead through disruption -- like contingency planning. These are of course very helpful and important topics, but they miss the point and the soul of leadership right now. As a futurist, humanist, innovation and leadership expert, I've spent the last 20 years working with chief executives from many Fortune 500 organizations on how to develop exceptional leaders that can lead through and respond to the mega-shifts coming in the future. The parallels between what we need to do to navigate the Coronavirus pandemic and AI are endless. Here we are at a moment where the disruptions I have anticipated have been accelerated -- not by the exponential curve of technology, but by the exponential curve of a virus.