As the world is caught up in the heated discussions about all potentials of the use of AI and its implications, it is rather difficult to simultaneously manage the emotions of joy and frustration of the process, rationalise the ROIs and the future of the labour market, and visualise the better world it intends to bring. An unbiased assessment of the potential of AI in business is stretched between overt optimism and excessive pessimism – a universal human struggle between love and fear. As with all human dilemmas the ancient Greeks bring the universal wisdom – the resolution to the drama is DEUS EX MACHINA. Pun intended!

The excitement around AI and the fear around it are both a reflection of where we stand as society and as business. Dr Shannon Vallor rightfully calls it a mirror, explaining that the use of AI exposes us to the situations that reflect all those things that are already existent in our reality, but we might not perceive it or take it for granted. She gives an illustrative example.  The implementation of AI in a medical institution in the USA has allowed the local team to conclude that some patients were prioritised for medication and treatment over others disclosing an unpleasant and shocking revelation of deeply embedded racism in the system.  It has drawn attention to an existing social problem, that has probably been present for years and the system has incorporated it through its processes and procedures being aware of it or not.  The issue is not the problem of AI nor is it caused by AI. Rather it is unveiled by it. 

The mirroring effect described with this example is interesting, but it is not a new phenomenon reserved only for current era.  We see it often when observing the adoption of technology in society.  Let’s just remember the emergence of media culture, with wide range adoption of television in the daily life.  This is something that probably only gen X can still remember. Television has provided us with a space to observe social dynamics and all of its positive aspects as well the destructive ones. We loved that we could follow world’s events in real time and consume global pop culture from our own home space, but we feared the fast and shallow entertainment of televised reality and inter-cultural clash of social habits. Regardless of all the criticism television kept blooming culturally and evolving technologically.

In both cases technological novelty “gave us a mirror” allowing us to see things more clearly. And more importantly, it kept giving us an opportunity to modify it to the benefit of us all. Whether we use it or not depends on the ability to recognise it as such. It is the matter that theorists and philosophers elaborated quite a lot, and for a good reason.

Bearing this in mind, what I find important to focus on now is this very opportunity to use the experience of implementing technology, AI specifically, to address the systemic flaws within our business and see what values need to be strengthened or (re)built for the future benefits – growth, profitability or impact. In short, the process of understanding technology and its use gets us to the realisation that what matters for the business, matters for the individual and society, and vice-versa.

This brings me to the purpose-driven approach to implementing innovation, and obviously AI. 

The experience from relatively recent, and for many markets and businesses still ongoing, “digital transformation era” has left us with valuable lessons. The investments and efforts businesses have put into it were immense with no guarantee of success as perceived from traditional KPI perspective.  However, the process of developing, implementing and using innovation in an existing business has brought about significant mind-shift for those who were visionary enough.  

We know now that the innovation requires of a leader to hold and demonstrate:  (1) the courage to face the fear by unveiling some vital flows of the system, (2) the open-minded commitment to the process accepting the unknown, (3) the holistic view of the entire business ecosystem to measure value and ROI. These imply a growth in consciousness, surge of knowledge-transfer as value and focus on the impact business is likely to create in the new context. And as a factor X of the process, there is no room for half-heartedness.

I highlight these purposefully, because as the business world embarks on the AI ship these qualities are a mandatory starting point.  While the digital transformation era has forced the business leaders to get acquitted with technology and learn to find the common ground with their heads of IT function and the entire IT departments including their consultants – which for both sides has been an eye-opening to say the least – the use of AI takes it all to a whole new level.

Just thinking about the use of AI in business has already caused us to start seriously considering its possible implications – not only for the business, ROIs and improved KPIs, but for much wider and long-term implications, amongst others the ones on the workforce, new generations, cognitive functions, skills, creativity, perceptions… All this even before AI has taken on its fully fledged roll-out across industries and business functions and the entirety of the social arena.

This highlights the wide impact of such a technology and draws attention to the fact that its implementation requires leaders to focus on creating within the business the right and precise context in which AI will operate to achieve its goals.  Such goals – the business KPIs – are to be considered in the wider societal context.   This is what is expected of the business leaders of the future.  Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 confirmed that CEOs are expected not only to manage the business performance, but to manage and guide the wider societal impacts of the new and upcoming technology.   

The use of AI requires business leaders to rethink and re-prioritise the strategic approach to business.  Adopting the novel approach for the new era in my opinion consists of two critical components equally important for business and society.  First, (1) understand that the strategy and value it intends to achieve need to encompass business, technology and ecosystem seen as a whole, (2) the way to implement the strategy shifts towards engaging and purpose-driven management style with the long term impact in mind.   

Compared to now already outdated business practice, the use of AI in business, does not allow room for opportunism. What it calls for is the vision of future collective betterment.  The principles of the purpose-driven economy take on its full form in the context of the AI use. And it brings us closer to the real role of the business, as defined by Dr Colin Mayer, which is “to create profitable solution to the problems of people and planet”.  

The power AI holds is in shifting our social perspective and raising the consciousness about of our role and the impact we create with our actions. It does not come about instantly with the tool per se, but throughout the process of engaging with it purposefully while finding its use. We all have a part to play, but in the years to come the business is to take its turn in leading the way.

This is just a dip in the vast waters of rather dramatic elaborations around AI and what is yet to bring. Pessimism should be put aside for inevitably the solution to ‘seemingly hopeless’ state of the world will appear as DEUS EX MACHINA, but this time with a Lenny Kravitz’s Let love rule  as the soundtrack. And it requires conscious work. Bless!

In this article I make reference to the following authors and their work:

Vallor, Shannon (2024). The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking.  Oxford University Press.

Mayer, Colin (2019). Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good.  Oxford University Press.

Edelman Trust Institute. (2024) Report: “2024 Edelman Trust Barometer – Innovation in Peril”. Available online.

Kravitz, Lenny (1989) Album: Let Love Rule. Virgin Records.