While some companies — most large banks, Ford and GM, Pfizer, and virtually all tech firms — are aggressively adopting artificial intelligence, many are not. Instead they are waiting for the technology to mature and for expertise in AI to become more widely available. They are planning to be “fast followers” — a strategy that has worked with most information technologies.
Why Companies That Wait to Adopt AI May Never Catch Up
While some companies—most large banks, Ford and GM, Pfizer, and virtually all tech firms—are aggressively adopting artificial intelligence, many are not. Instead they are waiting for the technology to mature and for expertise in AI to become more widely available. They are planning to be “fast followers”—a strategy that has worked with most information technologies. That likely won’t work. It can take a long time to develop and fully implement AI systems, and there are few if any shortcuts to the necessary steps. Once they have been successfully undertaken, scaling—particularly if the company has a plentiful supply of data and the knowledge engineering mastered —can be very rapid. By the time a late adopter has done all the necessary preparation, earlier adopters will have taken considerable market share—they’ll be able to operate at substantially lower costs with better performance. In short, the winners may take all and late adopters may never catch up.