know whether this Fourth Industrial Revolution is very good or very bad. It all starts to feel like a capitalist's dream…but a worker's nightmare. And the uncertainty is creating a palpable sense of anxiety, for at a personal level, many of us don't know what to do about it.
Some see only the dark side of this shift, and indeed, many of today's headlines forecast a grim future in a “jobless economy” as robots take over our livelihoods. But the coming digital boom and build-out we describe in the next chapter will be highly promising for those who are prepared. In fact, it will usher in once-in-a-century growth prospects as we reengineer our infrastructure, our industries, and our institutions. Similar to the prior three industrial revolutions, this one will steamroll those who wait and watch, and will unleash enormous prospects and prosperity for those who learn to harness the new machine.
All of this depends on what you do now to prepare for an era when machines can potentially do nearly everything related to knowledge work.
Will many jobs be “automated away” in the coming years? Yes. However, for the vast majority of professions, the new machine will actually enhance and protect employment. We don't think, for example, that a single teacher or nurse will lose their job due to artificial intelligence. Instead, these professions will become more productive, more effective…and more enjoyable. Workers in such professions will come to view the new machine as their trusted colleague. Just as one wouldn't think of driving across London today without an AI-based GPS, or researching a subject without referring to Google and Wikipedia, most workers in the coming years would not consider approaching their daily tasks without a “bot” at their side.
Additionally, entirely new professions will be created, driving employment in fields we can't currently envision (imagine trying to describe a “database administrator” to somebody in 1955). We have much to look forward to if we understand exactly what the new machine can and cannot do and how it will impact the future of work. Some very clear patterns for success have emerged, and we'll spend the rest of the book framing what's going on and providing tactical guidance on how to win in the new digital economy.
Getting AHEAD in the Age of the New Machine
We've written this book to provide you with a roadmap, a guide to success for this time of transition. First, we will outline what the machine actually is: how it's built, what it can do, and what it can't do. We will then look at where it can best be used today and tomorrow. What industry problems can it solve? What new customer value propositions can it create? Third, and most importantly, we will give you a structured approach for moving forward with our AHEAD model, which is based on our work with Global 2000 companies at the vanguard of the digital transition.
Briefly, AHEAD outlines the five distinct approaches for winning with systems of intelligence. The acronym stands for:
• Automate: Outsource rote, computational work to the new machine. This is how Netflix automated away the Blockbuster retail store and how Uber is automating away taxi dispatching.
• Halo: Instrument products and people and leverage the data exhaust they generate through their connected and online behaviors (what we call Code Halos) to create new customer experiences and business models.16 General Electric and Nike are changing the rules of the game in their industries by instrumenting their products, surrounding them with halos of data, and creating new value propositions and customer intimacy.
• Enhance: View the computer as a colleague that can increase your job productivity and satisfaction. The GPS in your car currently enhances your driving, keeping you on the fastest route, alerting you of road hazards, and ensuring that you never get lost. In the coming years, entire vocations, from sales to nursing to teaching, will be revolutionized with the power of computer-based enhancement.
• Abundance: Use the new machine to open up vast new markets by dropping the price point of existing offers, much as Henry Ford did with automobiles. In the way that Betterment is using AI to bring financial security to the masses, which market offers can be greatly democratized and expanded in your industry?
• Discovery: Leverage AI to conceive entirely new products, new services, and entirely new industries. As Edison's light bulb led to new discoveries in radio, television, and transistors, today's new machine will lead to a new generation of discovery and invention.
These are five specific approaches —plays, if you will – for winning with AI, each with its own set of approaches and tactics. In the coming pages, we will utilize this model to demystify the application of the new machine in your business.
The first play —to automate– is the one most prevalent in today's zeitgeist. Automation has been the initial step in each industrial revolution, as one loom replaced 40 textile workers or one steam engine had the power of 50 horses. Today, automation will be a similar necessary “evil,” because it's how you will deliver at the “Google price” in core portions of your company. However, what most market observers miss is that the next wave of automation will pave the way for invention and economic expansion through the four subsequent plays.
This one-two of efficiency plus invention will manifest itself across all industries. Banking will become more efficient and personalized. Health care will become more transparent and effective, generating much better outcomes. Manufactured goods will become more interactive, intuitive, and reliable. Our food system will be less wasteful and produce higher quality goods. Education will be enhanced and individualized, and government services will be upgraded and more cost-effective. And, as outlined previously, much of this shift will not be driven by companies that were started last year or even 10 years ago but by companies started by our grandparents. This is because those companies have access to the richest lodes of data, the “fuel” for the new machine.
Much has already been said and written about the potential impact of the new machine on society. We wrote this book not for policy wonks and academics but rather for people in organizations large and small that are trying to make the best decisions possible for their businesses and their own jobs. We aren't naïve to the fact that business happens in a wider context, but we can't all sit around waiting for politicians to improve education or to pass huge spending bills to enhance infrastructure or enact a universal basic income. We need to act today in the world as it is. You can rest assured that if you don't act now, others will.
The title of this book is What to Do When Machines Do Everything. This may sound a bit hyperbolic, and clearly machines will never do everything and nobody really wants them to. But in the next few years the new machines will continue to amaze, will be embedded most everywhere and in most everything, and will increasingly do more and more of the work people do today.
Technology is no longer the domain of the few but the province of the many. As such, those who win in the next phase of the digital economy are not those who can create the new machines, but those who figure out what to do with them. This book is your field guide.
2
FROM STALL TO BOOM
Many of us feel stalled. Growth, both for our companies and for us individually, seems increasingly difficult to attain. There is plenty of evidence of the structural weakening of our economy: stagnant wages, rising debt levels, and anemic productivity growth. It seems the major trends are all working against us: increased global competition, a winner-take-all economy driving massive income inequality, the steady erosion of privacy and security, start-ups worth billions emerging while legacy firms crumble, and technology taking our jobs. It's clear that the old rules of work and business no longer apply.
We (the authors) work with a lot of people excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in the digital economy, but their optimism is often tempered by the news of the day. The headlines all too frequently seem to foretell a pending jobless nightmare of breadlines and robot overlords. And some feel as if there's a party being thrown – in Silicon Valley, New York, and London – that they're not invited to.
Yet within the malaise there is good news. We have weathered similar storms before, and the shape and pattern of our current situation