media update’s Aisling McCarthy attended the Innovation & Index Conference on 17 October, hosted by Accenture, at Summer Place in Hyde Park.

South Africa needs to embrace AI technology

William Mzimba, CEO of Accenture, said that the biggest businesses today are the likes of Airbnb and Google, who have shown exponential growth through utilising AI.

“Why have we, as a nation, not yet embraced the AI platform?” he asked.

He mentioned that technology-powered leaps in growth are few and far between in South Africa. Mzimba said that Mark Shuttleworth’s company, Thawte Consulting, is one of the best-known internet security companies to come out of South Africa, which is worrying because the company was started in 1995.

Mzimba said that South Africans need to do more with the Internet and technology, as that is the only way we can keep up with our international counterparts.

“No one [internationally] is coming to fix the problem – we need to fix it ourselves.”

He said that innovation is necessary to see a growth in the country’s GDP and that the only way forward is to teach the future generations how to coexist with machines.

“The fear of AI is unfounded, we need to embrace the change,” said Mzimba.

Mzimba said that embracing AI does not have to mean inventing something, but rather, solving a specific problem using creativity. He highlighted that Steve Jobs did not invent the Apple software, but created it using a system that was already in place.

AI’s impact on profitability

The MD of Accenture Research, Paul Nunes, suggested that utilising AI systems can positively affect business’ profitability and to create ‘Big Bang Disruptions’.

Big Bang Disruptions refer to business ventures whose success comes out of nowhere, and cannot be predicted. Nunes called this the “Fail, fail, fail, succeed wildly” trajectory.

He identified Google Maps as a Big Bang Disruption to the GPS market, as within 12 months of Google Maps being launched, TomTom and Garmin saw an 85% decrease in their stock prices. Although their stock did gain in value, Nunes said it is still down 55% from where it was before Google Maps hit the market.

The success of Google Maps rested on two pillars, Nunes explained.
  1. Google Maps was free vs Garmin and TomTom’s which cost thousands.
  2. Real-time updates vs having to buy upgrades or buy a new device.
The reason Google Maps is able to be free is that it uses a platform everyone already had – cell phones. There was no need to purchase a new device for that specific purpose.

Nunes said that unencumbered development is the defining factor of all Big Bang Disruptions.

“With other businesses, years ago, you could see a business getting better and better. But now, development is done with rapid experimentation – it’s not right, it’s not right, it’s not right and then, suddenly, it’s perfect.”

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