Also: Twitter's CEO, JD.com turnover, and FDIC fees
Good morning.
ChatGPT has the fastest growing customer base of any technology in history, gaining 100 million users in just two months. And all signs suggest that business adoption will be equally swift. The new technology is top of mind for every CEO I talk with these days.
But while all are impressed by the power of these new tools, many are still perplexed about where to start. Unlike previous generations of A.I., which focused on relatively narrow tasks—predicting customer churn, for instance, or targeting supply chain issues—generative A.I. models can tackle a wide variety of creative tasks. And while the amazing breadth of these models makes them impressive, it also makes them daunting. Our recent polling shows the vast majority of Fortune 500 CEOs are still at the experimental stage, or planning their first step.
Accenture CTO Paul Daugherty has a new piece for Fortune that may help light the path. He highlights five core ways that people can work with generative A.I. to create value. McKinsey also has a paper out this morning that is a primer for businesses exploring generative A.I., and provides helpful use cases. McKinsey’s Lareina Yee, one of the authors, told me their analysis “of the apparel, fashion and luxury sectors found that GenAI has the potential to add $150 billion in operating profits.” Hard to overlook.
Both Daugherty’s article and the McKinsey paper highlight writing software code as one of the areas where generative A.I. can make a huge difference—increasing productivity by 50%, McKinsey says. Which raises another interesting issue: For the last decade, the surest route to a good job was to learn to write code. But now that machines do that, what’s the new formula for job security? Microsoft provided some guidance this week in its Work Trend Index Annual Report. The skills needed to survive are those that will help humans manage the machines: analytical judgement, ability to work flexibly, emotional intelligence, creative evaluation and curiosity.
To sum it up: generative A.I. is likely to have the most profound impact on the business world of any technology since the PC. And the best way to remain relevant will be to learn how to use it smartly. What’s coming, says Daugherty, is a reinvention “of the way work is done, dramatically amplifying what people can achieve.” And the companies and people that get there fastest “will gain a big leg up on less innovative competitors.”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
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Twitter's new CEO
NBCUniversal’s chairman of global advertising Linda Yaccarino is reportedly in the running to become Twitter’s next head. Elon Musk, who bought the social media platform last October, announced Thursday that he would step down as CEO in around six weeks and focus on product development, though he did not name a successor. Fortune
JD.com turnover
The CEO of Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com announced on Thursday that he would step down after just a year in the role. Xu Lei will be replaced by CFO Sandy Ran Xu, who will be the firm’s first female CEO. JD.com’s shares rose 7% during Friday trading in Hong Kong, after the company reported a $907 million quarterly net profit, compared to a $432 million loss this time last year. South China Morning Post
Replenishing funds
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will charge banks with more than $5 billion in assets a fee to restore its deposit insurance fund. The regulator predicted that banks with over $50 billion in assets would cover 95% of the cost. It estimated that its decision to protect depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank of New York in full, beyond normal insurance caps, cost it $15.8 billion. Bloomberg
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Generative AI in the Workplace Organizations are looking more closely at the potential capabilities and implications of Generative AI, from public service applications to addressing climate change and transforming business functions. Explore insights that might help business leaders extract enterprise value from Generative AI in Deloitte’s AI Institute’s recent report. Read more.
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