Business Standard, India: Cognizant’s Chief Strategy Officer Says the Adoption of AI and Digital Tech is a Competitive Necessity

“There are three key areas where AI and ML are helping organizations transform their businesses,” says Malcolm Frank, Cognizant’s Chief Strategy Officer and coauthor of ‘What To Do When Machines Do Everything’. “The first area is digitizing the customer experience. The second area of focus is developing smart products by creating digital extension of the machines and having AI support these products, thereby changing the value proposition completely. And the third area of focus and the one that is growing the fastest of all is robotic processes.” Excerpts:

“As recently as three years ago, clients were just intrigued by SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud). Companies were looking at the same set of vendors for standardized solutions. But all that is changing with players like Amazon and others discovering the power of AI, etc. Such companies started connecting the dots early on and it’s incredible to see where they are now. A lot of organizations are in exploratory stages as they realize that their strategy and customer engagement needs to get smarter. The combination of optimism and fear that clients today have shows that for them it is a competitive necessity to adopt AI and digital technologies.

The adoption of ML and AI depends on where the organization is focused. If you are an IT organization, you are likely to recognize digital as a competency and focus on getting smarter, develop ML solutions on a priority basis. So, it is this focus that is going to trigger the kind of technology deployment, network architecture, data transfer and security protocols that an IT organization will go for. Then, there would be very specific use cases. There are clients that are looking to redefine the product, customer experience and business process. And that is fairly heavy work. It requires confidence. Players like us need to show what organizations can possibly achieve by adopting AI and ML.

Also, the adoption is skewed in favor of big brands as a lot of them have the resource to invest in these technologies. Where the AI and ML market is right now, one needs to hire the right talent and partners as a lot of these solutions are bespoke, one cannot buy them off the shelf.

In 20 years, probably every job will be touched by AI. Worldwide, about 12 per cent white-collar jobs will get eliminated by machines. On the other hand, three quarters of jobs are going to be protected by AI. It will actually make people’s jobs more secure and better. Once AI, ML, and virtual and augmented reality go mainstream, these technologies will prove to be a huge job creator.

A grand plan to go digital and adopt AI at one stroke is going to fail. Start small. Pick two-three very focused areas and develop AI and ML practices. Once you get confidence, leverage the team’s knowledge to design more AI and ML powered applications.

With key projects in the pipeline and specific solutions coming from companies like us, the AI market too is set to take off soon.”

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