Human + Machine, Updated and Expanded

Book excerpt: AI—including generative AI—is radically transforming business. Are you ready? Accenture technology leaders Paul Daugherty and Jim Wilson provide crucial insights and advice to help you meet the challenge. Look around you. Artificial intelligence is no longer just a futuristic notion. It's here right now—in software that senses what we need, supply chains that "think" in real time, and now generative AI that is radically reshaping work and productivity. Twenty-first-century pioneer companies are already using AI to innovate and grow fast. The bottom line is this: Businesses that understand how to harness AI can surge ahead. Those that neglect it will fall behind. Which side are you on? In this updated and expanded edition of Human + Machine—including a new chapter on gen AI—Accenture technology leaders Paul Daugherty and Jim Wilson show that the essence of the AI paradigm shift is the transformation of all business processes within an organization, whether related to breakthrough innovation, everyday customer service, or personal productivity habits. As humans and smart machines collaborate ever more closely, work processes become more fluid and adaptive, enabling companies to change them on the fly—or completely reimagine them. Based on the authors' experience and research with fifteen hundred organizations, the book reveals how companies are using the new rules of AI to leap ahead on innovation and profitability and what you can do to achieve similar results. It describes six entirely new types of hybrid human + machine roles that every company must develop, and it includes a "leader's guide" with the five crucial principles required to become an AI-fueled business. Human + Machine provides the missing and much-needed management playbook for success in the new age of AI.