The AI of digitalization

This article is the last of four where I explore different dimensions of digital transformation. Earlier, I discussed business models, product upgrades and data exploitation. The fourth dimension is concerned with artificial intelligence. Similar to the other dimensions, our research showed that there’s a clear evolution path that companies go through as they transition from being traditional companies to becoming digital ones (see the figure).

In the first stage, the company is still focused on data analytics. All data is processed for the sole purpose of human consumption and interpretation. At this point, things are all about dashboard, visualization and stakeholder views.

In the second stage, the first machine learning (ML) or deep learning (DL) models are starting to be developed and deployed. The training of the models is based on static data sets that have been assembled at one point in time and that don’t evolve unless there’s an explicit decision taken. When that happens, a new data set is assembled and used for training.