George Westerman, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, has been researching digital transformation for decades. The lessons he’s learned along the way still largely apply to the current AI boom, but at the same time, he believes things are a bit different this time around.
Speaking to an audience of a few hundred business leaders during a webinar hosted by MIT on LinkedIn recently, he shared the most critical skills for leaders ushering in AI transformation; what organizations are underestimating; and what they need to do differently to succeed with AI.
His main takeaway, however, is that success with digital transformation has nothing to do with the technology itself. It all hinges on how an organization approaches the change.
AI is moving too fast for you to plan
“The idea of planning and executing a five-year-plan, it just doesn’t work as well in this time when technologies are changing rapidly, when customer expectations are changing rapidly, and when the competitive market is changing so fast,” Westerman said.
