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How AI Will Transform and Impact Businesses

By Ed Macosky, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Boomi

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape and hyper-competitive business environment, leaders must move beyond the conventional perception of AI as a mere tool and capitalize on the technology's full potential to reshape organizational dynamics.

In the coming year, AI will emerge first and foremost as a set of collaborative tools, revolutionizing the way organizations operate. As AI becomes more prominent in businesses, data quality will become a higher business-level priority and leaders will need to invest in data management strategies and solutions that prioritize accuracy and consistency. As these changes take place and businesses continue to grapple with a shortage of skilled IT talent, leaders will need to prioritize the democratization of technology in order to thrive during an IT skill drought. With all this in mind, one could say that AI's redefined role is not simply a technological but more so, a cultural shift. As we leap to 2024, these AI trends will make significant transformations in businesses.

Artificial intelligence will bring teams closer together as leaders across every industry begin to embrace the technology.

Within the next year, AI will become the primary driver of the development life cycle - not just as an IT assistant, but as a set of collaborative tools. Developer and engineering teams have had their work largely restricted to the backend, but I anticipate IT leaders to become key advisors as AI becomes more ingrained in a business' overarching goals. Both technical and non-technical staff will need to align on their AI strategy in tandem as organizations seek to utilize AI for writing code, prototyping, testing, and quality assurance to drastically reduce the time needed to develop new projects. This will enable technical staff to innovate more frequently, and non-technical staff can have a stake in building solutions, rather than just providing requirements.

AI technologies  won't be as valuable or trustworthy without data accuracy and quality.

One of the most pressing concerns in the age of AI is data quality. Data quality has always been a key ingredient for success - for example, being able to parse through overwhelming amounts of customer information to provide them with personalized experiences. However, AI has elevated the stakes when it comes to data. As organizations rely on AI more and more to supplement their developer initiatives, investing in data management is no longer just an IT concern, but a business concern. This makes having quality data more important than ever to ensure the AI-based outcomes are accurate. Without quality data, AI can quickly become a massive pain point, rather than an efficient solution. By ensuring data accuracy from the beginning, AI can drastically improve productivity and efficiency across every level of your organization. 

Democratization of technology will be driven by AI automation.

Democratizing technology is becoming a top priority for many, thanks to high demand and limited supply for IT talent. Being able to reskill non-technical staff quickly and effectively will be integral to overall resiliency within an organization. With too much overhead on both infrastructure maintenance and technical training, businesses can quickly find themselves unable to adapt fast enough in tough macroeconomic climates. AI will enable the drastic reduction of resources needed for maintenance, as well as reduce the amount of expertise required to have a strong understanding of their tech stack.

To outpace the competition in today's dynamic business environment, leaders must be constantly searching for the next game-changing innovation. With AI, it's already here. Leaders must embrace its transformative potential beyond the technical aspects, recognize the newfound importance of data quality and make investments accordingly, and leverage the increasing democratization of technology to empower team members in all roles of the business. Doing so will enable them to propel their business forward and help ensure resilience in fast-changing times.  

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ed Macosky is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Boomi (CPTO). He has more than 20 years of experience building high performing agile teams, designing and launching new software and service products, solution delivery and customer retention. Ed works to establish and execute Boomi's product vision and roadmap - delivering an intelligent, flexible and scalable integration platform that accelerates business outcomes by making information, interactions and innovations flow faster.