The moment a hyped-up new technology garners mainstream attention, many businesses will scramble to incorporate it into their enterprise. The majority of these trends will splutter and die out by Q4. Artificial intelligence (AI) is unlikely to be one of them.
How to Set Up an AI R&D Lab
There’s a common misconception that rebranding as an AI company is as simple as having data, infrastructure, and off-the-shelf data and analytics. The reality is that AI is complex, high-risk, expensive, and often requires significant business transformation. Most importantly, though, it demands an ultra-specialized talent pool that, according to latest reports, currently stands at only 22,000 PhD-level experts worldwide — a remarkably small pool. To go beyond data science and do real AI, you need to hire the right people, embrace research, and adapt your culture. The “right” people are, for now, almost entirely academics. To attract them, you need to be able to offer compelling datasets and interesting problems to work on. Computational power and a strong team to provide research mentorship are also required. But the ability to pursue curiosity-driven research is the real draw.