Bonus Episode: Generative AI Trends for 2024 With Tom Davenport

**Alison** (0:02)
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Hi, everyone. Alison here. As our show remains on winter break, we're dropping bonus episodes for you in our feed. Today, Sam and Shervin speak with Tom Davenport, a professor at Babson College, who weighs in on what he sees as the most interesting and compelling AI trends for organizations in the coming year. We hope you enjoy this episode, and as always, really appreciate your ratings and reviews, as well as comments on how we can continue to improve.

**Tom Davenport** (0:55)
I'm Tom Davenport from Babson College, and you're listening to Me, Myself, and AI.

**Sam Ransbotham** (1:00)
Hi, everyone. We've got a bit of a different episode for you today that we're excited about. Today, Shervin and I are talking with Tom Davenport, distinguished professor of Information Technology Management at Babson College.
The fun thing is that through his work, Tom has vast insights into what's happening with artificial intelligence. And Shervin also spends a lot of time talking with companies working on real projects. So we're kind of planning to have a more general episode about the state of AI and the directions we see. Tom, thanks for joining us.

**Tom Davenport** (1:32)
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (1:34)
Hi, Tom.

**Sam Ransbotham** (1:35)
All right, let's start easy.
What do we all think that companies are excited about right now? Tom, what are people excited about?

**Tom Davenport** (1:43)
I don't know if you've heard of this thing called generative AI, but people seem to be quite interested in it.
In a way, I think they're too interested in it because there are obviously more traditional forms of AI some people call legacy AI that is still quite valuable. I know you talked about it for years on this podcast before generative AI came along, and for many companies, I think it's still as relevant or maybe even more so than generative AI. So oftentimes, you have to try to persuade them this is not the only form of AI that's out there.

**Sam Ransbotham** (2:18)
It's funny, Shervin and I were just talking about the phrase traditional or you now said legacy AI. You know, how have we gotten to the point where we can talk about this G-Wiz and newfangled thing as traditional or legacy at this point?

**Shervin Khodabandeh** (2:31)
Well, you remember, Sam, at the World Bank event a couple of days ago, somebody reminded us that, well, AI has been around since the 50s.
So in some ways, it's not that wrong to refer to it as legacy. But Tom, totally resonates with what you're saying. That is, generative AI has made such a big splash that some folks have forgotten about the bigger splash that was already there that maybe they had ignored, which is AI.
In our work at BCG, I see three paradigms. I see those companies who have been building and investing in AI for some time. And Sam and I have done a ton of research. As I know, you have too, Tom. And so these companies, for them, this is a continuation of their investments, though not necessarily a linear continuation. But they do have a fair amount of capabilities in terms of data ecosystem and technology ecosystem and ways of working. And so they are more willing and able to bring in generative AI and make it work with AI.
That's, I would say, the winners today. Then there's a group that have been taking small steps around AI. And so now they're seeing an acceleration with generative AI. And they're thinking, oh, we need to really, really think hard about our AI strategy and how it fits together. And so this is a wake-up call.
It's no longer a theoretical thing. And then there is a group that's unfortunately thinking generative AI is going to come, so we don't have to worry about AI anymore. So everything is now generative AI, and we don't need data scientists or data engineers and everything. And you just ask it, and it will do, which is unfortunate. I think that group is slowly learning. So that's what I'm seeing. I don't know, Tom, what are you seeing?

**Tom Davenport** (4:22)
Well, it's interesting. I hadn't quite heard of that last category. I agree with you that the early adopters have an advantage relative to making generative AI real in their organizations.