AI ROI
If I’d been a cheerleader and had some pom poms it would be great to turn that into a cheer. We need some cheer. The week ended and started with the stock market having a moment to be sure. Berkshire Hathaway slashed its stake in Apple, Intel is melting down, employment is slowing up, at least here in the US, and there is pressure on the fed. I’m not even going to mention geopolitics.
Our sales benchmark says things are slowing and our industry is usually a great indicator. We track with GDP and enterprise budgets, and we are hearing from clients about lengthening pipelines, lack of urgency and some gray clouds on the horizon. I’m really wondering how things are going to take shape between now and an election — usually an election year is good for the economy. This one? I am not so sure.
In and around this we have another technical wave forming, ready to overtake us like Teahupo’o. Archery wins separated by millimeters — 100-meter men’s race in a thrilling photo finish and AI everywhere all at once. But that wave? Insanity. But that’s kind of how it feels every day these days. Leadership is Olympic sport. Managing boards and their AI ROI expectations. Ditto. Innovate but cut costs. Kind of the conflicted vibe we’re seeing in our research and conversations. But the hype is wearing off. The bloom is coming off the rose. This always happens with a new technology and usually the pall in its trajectory is surrounded by some type of economic maelstrom. Looks like the story is repeating itself.
Which is why we’re hosting the Outsell Signature Event co-produced with JEGI CLARITY, October 9–10 at the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton, Boston and focusing it on the reality of Gen AI, not just the hype and how to use the technology to deliver business results. We see three main levers: revenue — from the technology being embedded in our offerings, cost savings — from improvement in operational efficiencies or productivity inside our organizations and licensing — new revenue from licensing content to big tech or others in need.
This last one is fraught — just take a look at what happened to Informa. You really don’t want your brand and the word ‘shocked’ in the same sentence let alone article. This is a whole post in the making but I’ll hold off until the story plays out. Let’s just say other large publishers are quaking in their boots about having done the very same thing. They just didn’t make a big splash with press-releases and after this, probably won’t.
We’re not loving the news about Anthropic being accused of ‘egregious’ data scraping and hope they get on the other side of this soon too. There is good business to be done in the market and I like these guys.
We’re going to unpeel all three topics, explore the levers and find the ROI. Where there is controversy there is clarity. Where there is uncertainty there is opportunity. We’re hitting that so called trough of disillusionment — the perfect time to make sense out of the non-sense.
Whether it’s the economy, geopolitics, M&A and valuations, or the outlook for our industry and where the growth is, (and isn’t) we have you covered. And for AI ROI it’s all about those levers. Which ones are you pulling?
Let us know and don’t forget to request your invitation or request a speaking opportunity.
We’ll see you soon. AI ROI, AI ROI….. — you can hear those pom poms rustle.