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An AI Update For Business Leaders, Executives & Entrepreneurs
What major shifts do you anticipate AI will bring about in 2025?
“It goes without saying that AI is transforming the world around us, taking communication and connectivity to new heights and transforming how we work. In 2024, interest in AI grew exponentially – in fact since 2022, Google Search terms for AI have increased by over 800%. However, 2025 will be the year AI will be put into practice by businesses – whether it’s creating cost efficiencies, saving time, supporting analytics or powering creativity. As business owners, my advice is to first establish the issue you want to resolve, and then research if AI can support you on this journey. As well as providing business impact, the solution needs to meet the security and privacy needs of your business.” – Deborah Honig, AI expert & chief customer officer at Samsung Electronics UK
“AI is altering the way entrepreneurs and business leaders identify market opportunities by forecasting trends and predicting consumer behaviour, allowing businesses to anticipate future needs and adjust their strategies accordingly. Additionally, AI tools can monitor competitor activities, pricing strategies, and market share in real time, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making. This use of AI allows more time to be spent developing ways to capitalise on opportunities without spending hours researching to see if developing ideas will be successful once launched. Entrepreneurs are now being empowered to make better decisions, earlier, allowing business development to happen more rapidly than ever.” – Ali Kazmi, co-founder of AI Simulator, an AI platform that simulates the private market for future investors & entrepreneurs
What’s the most important thing business leaders or entrepreneurs need to be aware of?
“Leaders need to accept and understand what AI technology can do. I have lived through the internet boom and the initial AI comeback a decade ago in the form of machine learning. Both of these were waves of change in the IT industry that affected every aspect of our society and our lives. But I’ve never seen such a high speed of adoption as with generative AI. Even though the technology is young and not perfect, it is obvious that it fills a real need for most of us, individuals as well as businesses. Therefore, leaders must educate themselves in AI to learn the truth about its capabilities and risks. Use AI to solve a problem; do not invent a clever solution to a problem no one has. Be aware of the new risks that generative AI introduces, like hallucinations and toxicity, and allow use of AI accordingly for your own customers.” – Zorina Alliata, professor of responsible artificial intelligence, digital business & innovation at OPIT
How exactly do you see AI impacting decision-making?
“AI is already beginning to impact decision-making processes, but human intuition will still have a place in executive decision. AI simulations can aid in decision-making, allowing businesses to see patterns and possibilities that are invisible to human intuition. AI can also aid in mitigating biases involved in decision-making and give an objective eye that may not always be included when making business decisions. One of the great things about using AI for decision-making is its ability to assess potential risks more comprehensively than humans, as it can map thousands of data points together to give a projection of risks, which even the most experienced of entrepreneurs might not foresee. This risk assessment can also help entrepreneurs learn what works for their market, and what does not. That said, it's still important to remember the key role human intuition must continue to play in decision-making, especially when it comes to ethical implications and ensuring responsible business development.” – Ali
Which industries do you predict will be most disrupted by AI in the next couple of years?
“We believe AI has the potential to revolutionise how we work, rest and play, and will touch all areas of business. However, one industry you might not expect is the construction and homebuilding industry. Our research shows that 70% of people want to buy a home that uses technology to improve energy efficiency and are willing to pay a premium of 7.7% on the average house price. This is a huge opportunity for this sector.” – Deborah
“The financial industry is always one of the first to adopt new technologies. Financial companies are already using generative AI for document processing, risk assessment, fraud prevention and algorithmic trading. Because of increased computing power, we also see AI growth in healthcare and life sciences for drug discovery and enhanced diagnostic procedures. Retail, education, logistics are also adopting AI at a high pace. Which industries will remain unaffected? None, really. Even in high-touch human professions like nursing, therapy, parenting, AI is a tool that can help. While not replacing the job entirely, the industry will change because the AI tools are changing the way the job is done.” – Zorina
“AI offers people empowerment, so sectors that feel uniquely personal to individuals such as beauty, health and retail will be hotspots for transformation. Businesses whose customers feel less exposed when sharing their data will develop faster as the quality of the output is always dependent on people, their experience and the sharing that leads to good data input. Industries where consumers are more willing to share information will see faster disruption and, therefore, greater advancements. However, without high-quality human input, the output is not qualitative and can lead to inauthentic customer experience.” – Charlotte Cook-Anderson, VP strategic accounts & luxury lead at Teads, which supplies AI services to luxury brands including Cartier, Dior, Gucci & Jean-Paul Gaultier
Are there any new business models emerging due to AI advancements?
“I think we will see more AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) offerings, where AI tools are built on top of large language models and offer specific capabilities. This is an area where there is a lot of innovation, and I’m excited to see this develop further. I already use AIaaS on a daily basis for better writing, research, creating videos and presentations, and code debugging.” – Zorina
What are the biggest challenges for small businesses and start-ups in adopting AI technologies?
“The main barrier is the expense of accessing and implementing these technologies, which may make it harder to compete with larger companies who have the funds for AI. There are also other issues such as SMEs possibly lacking the data volume or quality to train or apply AI programmes to their businesses, as well as finding and retaining skilled AI professionals.” – Ali
“A big risk is too much enthusiasm and optimism. Generative AI has been adopted at a great speed. When you first try it, it is amazing. It can write a whole paper in seconds. It can explain complex diagrams and concepts. It feels like the trusted assistant you always needed, but it’s important to remember that AI comes with risks. It’s one thing to write an AI service that recommends what movie you should watch next, and another thing to write an AI service that reads your X-ray and diagnoses if you have a tumour. These two applications of AI have very different risk thresholds. You need to plan your AI service or product to be appropriate for use and to minimise the risk for your customer. I’ve also seen start-ups that tried out an idea and are now planning to build a product out of it, without any understanding of what it takes to run AI services at scale. Having best practices implemented, a good operational foundation, governance and a clear operational model are all requisites for running any production systems, especially something as risky and fraught with unknowns as AI products are.” – Zorina
Which ethical considerations should entrepreneurs keep in mind when integrating AI into their businesses?
“Some considerations when creating your risk strategy for AI include data privacy and security (ensuring responsible collection and use of customer data); transparency (being clear about how AI is used in products or services); fairness and bias (addressing potential biases in AI algorithms); job displacement (considering the impact on employees and planning for transitions); accountability (establishing clear responsibility for AI-driven decisions); and environmental impact (considering the energy consumption of AI systems).” – Zorina
How is AI changing customer expectations?
“Customer expectations have gone up significantly since generative AI enabled better interactions. Customers expect omni-channel communications, immediate responses, and predictive service. For those companies that still have fragmented data in several platforms and lack a cohesive customer journey, the learning curve will be steeper. The good news is, there are a lot of innovations in this area.” – Zorina
“For AI to be successful, the customer needs to be at the front and centre of the experience. 2025 will see a huge trend towards personalisation, with AI recognising our usage patterns and automating responses to make life more seamless. This also provides huge business potential, delivering more personalised and relevant marketing to end customers.” – Deborah
What skills do you think entrepreneurs will need to succeed in an AI-dominated business world?
“Some skills that would be useful include:
- AI literacy: understanding the basics of AI, machine learning and data science.
- Data analysis & interpretation: ability to work with and derive insights from large datasets.
- Strategic thinking: identifying where AI can add value to business processes and products.
- Ethical decision-making: navigating the ethical implications of AI implementation.
- Adaptability & continuous learning: keeping up with rapidly evolving AI technologies.
- Human-AI collaboration: effectively working alongside AI systems.
- Soft skills: creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence and leadership will become even more valuable as AI handles more routine tasks.
As a leader, you are not required to write code or figure out the best way to deploy your model, but a high-level understanding of what AI can do will help you have meaningful conversations with your technical team and create AI products that are truly useful.” – Zorina
Finally, how will AI impact the workforce this year?
“Our view is that AI should enhance rather than replace. By taking away some of the more repetitive tasks, it allows companies to deploy resources into areas that will deliver business impact. AI education will be vital so that our workforce has the skills to adapt to this new era.” – Deborah
“There are several studies on this, such as the one the World Economic Forum (WEF) released this month about the status of work and the future of jobs. Some of the highlights are that AI and other technologies will continue to broaden digital access, with a first effect on increased demand for AI and data skills. The number of technology-related roles is the fastest growing, but frontline roles like farmworkers, delivery drivers and construction workers are predicted to see the largest growth. AI has evolved quickly to create images and videos, threatening the jobs of designers and movie producers. It was not what we would have predicted a few years ago. AI has a way of growing in unexpected ways, as we discover new paths of research and innovate ways to use it. I personally think it is hard to predict exactly where AI will go, and what will be the result of automating all routine tasks and behaving closer to humans. One thing we can be sure of is that people who understand AI and know how to use it will benefit from whatever new challenges are coming our way.” – Zorina
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