Everyone is getting the AI 'revolution' wrong: Morning Brief

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Two letters are on the tip of every business executive's tongue these days: AI.

And even with a seemingly endless discussion of artificial intelligence and its potential application across industries, the level of conversation happening about AI is not right.

Either we're talking about it way too much or way too little.

Today's middle ground on "everyone has a strategy" will either be a strange footnote for this business cycle or a gross underestimation of the technology's true power. There is no in between.

The AI boom that was catalyzed by OpenAI's ChatGPT early this year is at a fever pitch, with Google's annual I/O developer conference on Wednesday serving as the latest showcase for the nascent technology.

In a video posted to Twitter Wednesday afternoon, the folks over at The Verge succinctly summed up Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai's pitch to investors. A pitch that involved saying "AI" or "generative AI" more than two dozen times and has resulted in Alphabet stock popping more than 7% over the last two trading sessions.

Talking about AI at "Sundar Pichai I/O presentation" levels, it seems, is good by investors.

On his company's earnings call late Wednesday, Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger quipped that he's "looking forward to a time [when] maybe AI does earnings calls for me." Adding: "You probably wouldn't know the difference."

But, of course, Iger's charming retort was followed by a serious answer.

Because no serious executive at this point doesn't have a response to questions about what a company's AI strategy might be.

"It's pretty clear that AI developments represent some pretty interesting opportunities for us and some substantial benefits," Iger added. "In fact, we're already starting to use AI to create some efficiencies and ultimately to better serve consumers. Getting closer to the customer is something that is a real goal of ours. And we think that AI will provide some great opportunities to do that."

For companies like Disney with huge libraries of intellectual property that could potentially be spoofed by new technologies, Iger added, "our legal team is working overtime already to try to come to grips with what could be some of the challenges here."

Overall, Iger said he's "bullish" on the prospects for bringing AI into Disney's business.

Which, of course. The technical marvel of "Fantasia" has already been rendered routine by technological advances; AI might make a film like this from something you could sketch out by lunch.

Speaking with Yahoo Finance Live last week, Airbnb (ABNB) CEO Brian Chesky called AI a "revolution," adding: "[AI is] going to change everyone's life. It's going to be like electricity. It's going to be something that we're all going to live with. It's a little hard to predict."

Neils Bohr once said that predictions are hard to make, especially those about the future.

But if we're indeed on the cusp of an electricity-level shift in our relationship with a certain technology then no one in business, the media, education, government, or any other institution should feel self-conscious about continually evangelizing on the power of AI. One day, that evangelism will merely be table stakes.

Should AI appear more like the recent hype about "blockchain technology" that fizzled with the 2018-19 crypto winter, however, then today's AI discourse will be remembered largely for what it's been so far — a little annoying, a little insistent, and a bit too pat to seem like the real thing.

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