AI as a backbone for Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Sustainability

Artificial intelligence is transforming the world we live in both positively and negatively. Unless one chooses to live remotely without any access to the modern world, everyone’s life is being significantly touched by Artificial Intelligence. The society that exists today thrives on rapid growth which is significantly fueled by innovation and entrepreneurship. However, society has to keep in mind the importance of sustainable growth as any growth should not affect the potential resources of future generations. Artificial Intelligence is taking the center stage in bringing these all together and creating a responsible yet growth-focused society.

• Innovation

While AI is seen as a technology that makes products ‘smarter’, it can also be seen as a key tool enhancing the innovation process itself. Artificial Intelligence could be an answer to the statement articulated by Griliches (1957) “Invention of a method of invention” wherein AI helps in the process of finding new innovations in the industry.

With the advancement of machine learning, the ability to improve the present innovation process can have a more profound impact on the economy and growth. Further, the amount of data acquired by these systems complements this growth.

However, Innovation is often regarded to be a creative process. But higher the level of creativity, the harder it will be to add value using artificial intelligence. This presents an interesting dilemma for managers who are responsible for pushing the innovation process within firms: Can artificial intelligence facilitate the process of innovation even if is a highly creative process?

Jack Hunter describes AI as a tool that can augment rather than replace researchers or innovators. AI would help them concentrate, save time, and potentially make less biased decisions (Nesta). Artificial Intelligence enables substantial ‘automation of discovery’ in innovation processes where classification and prediction are critical. Thus Artificial Intelligence can be seen as a technology to aid in Innovation rather than a technology that completely takes over Innovation.

• Entrepreneurship

Artificial Intelligence utilizes large datasets and machine learning algorithms in order to accurately predict phenomena. This could be a potential use case in identifying patterns across the databases that humans would not be able to detect, and can therefore be used to predict potential entrepreneurial opportunities for further pursual.

Moreover, Entrepreneurs can scan online customer forums, user feedback, product reviews, etc using Artificial Intelligence and find a potentially untapped market. Using AI-augmented approaches, companies can identify needs (or market failures) in significant numbers and can connect disparate bits of knowledge to drive new insights that can drive business development. Further, entrepreneurs now have the capability to test their assumptions using Artificial Intelligence to predict the customer’s reaction towards any new feature integration or a change in the current revenue model. This could greatly bring down the number of startup failures thus improving the economy as more people get into entrepreneurship.

• Sustainability

Sustainable Development requires us to think and meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. Artificial Intelligence is an ally in designing, implementing and planning the future of the planet in the most sustainable manner.

Our environment can be better managed by employing AI across a wide range of industries and sectors. Artificial Intelligence can:

• Better manage agricultural production by monitoring and implementing the necessary environmental conditions required for enhanced crop yields.
• Help increase energy efficiency through intelligent grid systems that use deep predictive analytics to manage demand and supply and optimize renewable energy solutions. By doing this, AI directly helps in reducing the carbon footprint and providing clean energy to all which also inclines with one of the SDGs.
• Develop methods for gathering data from ocean locations that are hard or impossible to reach. This would enable organisations to protect and nurture endangered species & habitats.
• Artificial intelligence is a key tool used by water scientists for predicting water consumption patterns within a particular geographical area and for making climate forecasts to aid in policy decisions.

With climate change becoming a pressing issue and impacting many industrial ecosystems, the various stakeholders of society should combine their efforts to create a necessary positive impact on the environment using technologies such as AI.

Introducing the ‘The Triangle of Sustainable Growth’, where AI lies at the heart of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability. The interaction between the three elements gives rise to a holistic growth

1. Sustainable Innovation

Many organizations are dedicating more effort to bettering the scope of their technological innovations to meet the challenge of sustainability in order to keep ecosystems intact and make the most effective use of natural resources. Artificial intelligence is a key technology in helping these companies attain Sustainable Innovation. By using Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT), the World Bee Project creates a network of programs that combine social, environmental and economic benefits to positively affect the future of bees and the impact they have on the planet.

2. Sustainable Entrepreneurship

Nowadays, entrepreneurs keep sustainability as a foundation of their business thus giving rise to Sustainable Entrepreneurship. Google, one of the most successful startups which is now a multinational technology company is hugely dependent on their technological infrastructure as they require enormous data centres in order to facilitate their operations. The energy used by these data centres is massive accounting for nearly 3% of the total electricity produced in 2017. The cooling equipment in these data centres is the biggest energy consumer. Google has partnered up with one of the leading players in the AI world to develop an efficient cooling system using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. This partnership has resulted in a massive reduction in energy consumption by 40%.

3. Business Model Innovation

While designing any business model, one has to keep three main elements into consideration: Value proposition, Value creation and value capture. Digital transformation is the utilisation of technology to enhance or create value in various business processes. Artificial Intelligence can aid in digital transformation for most businesses. Many businesses focus on acquiring data at every touchpoint between the business and its users. This data is invaluable as it could enable businesses to deploy Artificial Intelligence into the business model which creates a value creation loop and thus helps in Business Model Innovation. More and more data helps AI to create a better product which in turn brings in more users who are again sources of more data. This becomes a cycle of AI.