Artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting all different business functions. As a marketing and sales practitioner, I really see the transformative power of leveraging generative AI (gen AI). In Asia, we know that many companies and industries have been first movers in adopting some of this technology.
Looking back over the last decade, Asia has contributed around 55 to 60 percent of global GDP. I believe that AI will allow Asia to continue to maintain that competitive edge. Sixty-five percent of organizations here are adopting AI use cases, with the most prevalent among them related to growth, marketing, and sales.
It’s exciting to understand some of the specific areas and use cases where Asian companies have been utilizing it. There are three I like to talk about: CX, or customer experience; accelerating growth using analytics; and driving greater productivity in the functions.
This ability to get hyperpersonalized when you are targeting your customers with specific content is clearly on the leading edge. Using advanced analytics to mine for pockets of new growth and opportunity is another area that will give first movers or fast movers an advantage.
And third is this notion of driving productivity through different functional areas by using AI and gen AI to do some of the tasks that were more rote, freeing up time for higher-value tasks.
There are risks, however, that folks need to be mindful of as we go on this journey. One is intellectual property infringement, and another is data privacy, including how the rules governing it differs by country and by region.
It’s important to take a structured approach and have a clear operating framework for how you are going to use this new technology. Because I truly believe the companies moving faster and taking some risk—smart risk—are the ones developing real competitive advantage in the near term, which could give them real strategic distance in the medium and long run.