I remember back in the early 2000s gathering tightly around a conference room table with my colleagues as we debated whether it was the right moment to introduce mobile phones across our organization. The questions and considerations we had to balance seemed near endless: Who in our workforce should receive them first? How will personal and professional usage be distinguished? How will we ensure data privacy? How will we maintain security and access controls?
But after much discussion and deliberation, it hit me: with this technology in our hands, we will never be disconnected. That was terrifying, but also completely exhilarating. Any downside risks were quickly outweighed by the incredible opportunity this new technology offered. More than two decades later, it is hard to imagine how different our lives would be today had we believed the opposite.
Honeywell
From the early introduction of the Internet in the ‘80s to the rise of modern cloud computing in the ‘90s, once every five to 10 years a massively disruptive technology comes along with the ability to change our lives forever. Generative AI (GenAI) is today’s disruptor, poised to fundamentally reshape the way we as consumers live, work and play.
GenAI is just like the disruptors before it, with one meaningful difference. Never in my 20+ years as a technology leader have I witnessed a technological transformation as substantial as what occurred in 2023. At Honeywell, we went from exploring GenAI deployment for the first time last February to launching pilot programs with benefit realization and qualifying 24 programs to be fully launched in 2024. There is no doubt our investment has already started to pay off.
The question facing us now is how do we put this technology in more people’s hands while maintaining trust and protecting privacy? To address this, organizations must understand GenAI’s unique capabilities and how to best harness them for long-term bottom-line initiatives, rather than short-term productivity gains.
What makes GenAI so disruptive?
GenAI’s status as a disruptor is indisputable and unstoppable – the result of several factors that differentiate its impact from that of its predecessors:
1. GenAI allows us to unleash unstructured data: A single organization typically has 3-4x as much unstructured data (e.g., text, audio, video) as structured data. Until GenAI, unstructured data was a black box. Now, it’s useful, enabling companies to make better, more effective decisions about customers, partners and employees in a way never before possible.
2. GenAI is incredibly versatile: It is general-purpose and not purpose built. It can solve multiple complex problems at once and can be applied to every function in an organization. It is just as applicable to a company’s engineering department as it is to sales and marketing.
3. GenAI is remarkably easy to use: It is built to be accessible. It is not just for data scientists with Ph.D.s. Everyone gets it. When we put it in the hands of our employees, it gets easier for them to use it each time.
4. GenAI is constantly getting smarter: Every second, GenAI and the large language models that power it are learning and improving. As an example, the first time ChatGPT took the bar exam, it got a 10, it’s now scoring in the 90s.
Done successfully, GenAI’s broad adoption will undoubtedly have a net positive impact – but as with any new technology, nothing is free of risk. Our responsibility is to manage this technology, govern it and establish proper controls to protect data privacy, security and maintain trust.
Trust should not be a barrier that stops us from implementing disruptive technologies. Instead, when used correctly, technology and data allow us to build trust with our employees, customers and clients. In a recent Honeywell-sponsored survey of decision-makers at multinational businesses, 95% of global business decision makers said they “mostly” or “fully” trust automation to reach their organization’s goals. In contrast, fewer than half (46%) of those surveyed identified data privacy concerns as one of the top reasons organizations are not implementing automation.
What’s the catalyst for widespread adoption?
Today, many organizations like Honeywell have applied GenAI across departments and recognize its potential, but throughout the broader economy we are still far from adoption at scale.
At Honeywell, we believe 2024 will be the year in which organizations democratize access, putting this technology directly into the hands of employees whose creativity will naturally drive deployment across the entirety of the value chain. Getting there will require organizations to pivot from focusing on individual use cases where GenAI can simply automate tasks to tapping into the next horizon of its capabilities: those that will profoundly change how we innovate, make decisions and operate as businesses.
As we put this tool in more hands, we must also decompose the notion that GenAI will eliminate jobs. I believe we will build employee trust as we make our people aware of the upskilling opportunities GenAI offers, leading to more interesting work, while enabling higher degrees of critical thinking and ultimately enhancing the speed of decision-making.
The path ahead: how do you unleash the value of GenAI?
Whether you’re running a Fortune 500 company or leading a young startup, the question is not whether you will integrate GenAI into your organization, it’s how you will integrate it effectively without allowing it to become a massive distraction.
As someone who has stood in your shoes, I encourage you to think bigger. Avoid only using GenAI to solve little everyday problems (e.g., content aggregation, productivity, transcription). It will be a game changer for your organization if you can harness its power to address your most challenging pain points, or what I call the “big boulders.” Start by considering one of the use cases below:
- Incorporate GenAI across the supply chain to transform the customer experience.
- Leverage GenAI in M&A activity, including for due diligence, data synthesis in the data room and data migration throughout the integration.
- Deploy application partners’ solutions enabled by GenAI. At Honeywell, we are using Microsoft’s GitHub for our engineering organization so that code can be written and improved upon 24/7 to accelerate our go-to-market timelines. We are also leveraging Moveworks with embedded AI for our internal Smart Virtual Assistant.
The pace at which we are developing and accelerating technology is quickening. Just like the rush the mobile phone brought us two decades ago – GenAI is exciting, exhilarating and deserving of the hype and hope that surround it.
