Introducing your playbook for the GenAI future

In this introduction to Your Generative Enterprise™ playbook for the future, we explain how this study is different and reveal lessons learned that make this a must-read series for every enterprise leader.

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released a free demo version of ChatGPT, opening generative AI (GenAI) to the masses. Within 60 days, it attracted 100 million users, and viral growth has continued.

Until then, many of us could only speculate what it must have felt like when our forebears heard their first scratchy radio broadcast, saw the first grainy images of a television screen, or witnessed a plow slicing through the earth pulled by a steam-powered tractor rather than horses.

Now we know what that was like. That BOOM! we all heard was the starting gun of what the World Economic Forum calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

At first, we used one of the most advanced technologies in the known universe to, well, construct rap songs about colleagues and get pancake recipes in rhymed couplets.

Not a shining moment, but that’s OK. The ancients used the wheel as toys for children before they figured out they could use it to move stuff. Thankfully, humans are programmed to be tool users, so it wasn’t long before we started to ask, “How can this help me work smarter?”

Welcome to your playbook for enterprise Generative AI

We now recognize that by making these amazing AI bots free (at first) and easy to use, OpenAI and other fast followers kicked off a period of innovation that will impact every person, business, and society. The mass democratization of generative AI has only just begun to change how knowledge work—the driver of our global economy—gets done.

This sudden evolution has left enterprise business leaders without a map. Many work processes (and, if we’re honest, supporting technologies) have remained essentially unchanged for decades. It’s clear that we need a new playbook for managing these early days of our digital revolution.

We recognize the need for practical, informed guidance

There’s no dearth of studies, theories, policy notes, hysterics, and cautionary tales about GenAI. As researchers from HFS Research and Ascendion—with collectively more than a century of experience researching and advising on enterprise technologies—we recognized the need for practical, informed lessons from early GenAI innovators.

We set out to explore what early innovators have learned that can help other business leaders and decision makers.

We learned from “people who know”

We wanted practical insight from the field, so we developed a research program focusing on C-suite leaders and AI practitioners with first-hand experience implementing GenAI in the enterprise. Our quantitative survey entry criteria were exceptionally high. We carefully selected participants for their experience in implementing GenAI in organizations. We excluded anyone from a company with less than $500 million in 2022 revenue. We sought people responsible for success and dropped anyone below the director level. Our criteria screened out 80% of potential respondents.

We gathered quantitative and qualitative data

We hand-picked and interviewed more than 20 leaders to get deep insight into their successes, lessons learned, expectations for the future, use cases, and more. We also surveyed more than 100 leaders deploying GenAI at the enterprise level.

We made our findings clear and actionable

Raise your hand if you’d like to read a 60-page whitepaper.

Right—you don’t really have time, even if you wanted to. So, we created 12 crisp, snackable pieces of content that get to the point with insight and explicit tactical recommendations.

The road ahead is bumpy, the rules have changed, but human skills will help you navigate to success

If you ask business decision makers what they want, their responses are as predictable now as they were in centuries past: low costs, more revenue, and high overall productivity—all with less risk. Wishes are easy, but things get real when it’s time to convert PowerPoint slides to execution.

Three major themes emerged from our investigation and analysis.

Manage speed bumps and accelerants on the journey

Progress does not happen in a straight line; speed bumps and accelerants interfere with a direct journey. Forewarned is forearmed, and early innovators showed us what works and what to watch out for when it comes to enterprise GenAI.

Learn the new business rules of productivity and economics

The fundamentals of accounting—like revenue, margins, cost, and value—aren’t changing, but the rules of business certainly are. Industrial economy assumptions about productivity and business are being replaced by GenAI enterprise economics. Early innovators have learned a lot about what to expect and what to avoid.

Critical skills—and leadership—bring AI value to life

Even as bots do more, the humans’ roles in every value chain become more critical. GenAI is powerful, but it doesn’t turn itself on or show creativity, empathy, judgment, or motivation. Skilled humans in the loop (that’s us) will become even more important. Our early GenAI adopters told us what will matter.

We explore these themes across 12 (for now) short, provocative, actionable pieces. Visit this page to read all those already available.

1. How to win the race to become a Generative Enterprise™
   Early wisdom from the Ascendion C-suite
   Ascendion CEO Karthik Krishnamurthy shares the hard lessons that can help us all unlock value with generative AI.
2. Points, waves, and fields: The new physics of work
   AI reshapes industrial economy work and experiences (finally)
   We explore what early innovators have learned about how generative AI will reshape enterprise value over the coming quarters and years.
3. GenAI success depends on talent, data, cash, and culture
   Creating the conditions to win
   We explore lessons from early innovators about the factors that can help ensure successful value creation with generative AI.
4. Expect some turbulence as GenAI takes off
   How to smooth out the bumps
   Forewarned is forearmed. Explore the most impactful generative AI deployment obstacles identified by an exclusive cohort of early enterprise adopters.
5. GenAI Impact to surpass every other technology
   Buckle up for the great disruptor!
   We asked early innovators and adopters to rank the overall impact of generative AI over the next few years against other major technologies throughout history. Their responses will surprise you.
6. Going all-in on GenAI brings promise (and peril)
   Get ready to bust AI out of the IT department
   We explore lessons from early innovators about balancing overwhelming enthusiasm for adopting generative AI with concerns about delivering on its promises.
7. GenAI will re-shape business economics
   Generative AI will impact costs, revenue, and valuations
   We explore how generative AI will re-configure essential business economics, such as costs, revenue, and valuations.
8. Waves of AI value will peak at different times
   Expect rolling waves of generative AI impact on core financials
   We explore early innovators’ predictions of the peak impact of generative AI on key business levers.
9. AI will unlock value from every business function
   Harness the bots to work better, faster, and cheaper
   Early innovators predict which functions will be impacted most by generative AI. Spoiler alert: customer service, sales, and strategy top the chart.
10. IT investment will rebalance toward AI-powered value
    Unboxing generative AI value takes an ecosystem
    Early innovators share their plans for investment across the generative AI ecosystem.
11. Classics over coding? Skills to power success in the GenAI economy
    Capturing value from generative AI will require the right skills to work with the bots
    We explore which skills organizations will demand more as they strive to capture value from generative AI.
12. GenAI can fix the IT productivity paradox
    The rules of business are still in effect, but the game has changed
    Our cohort of experts suggests that generative AI may finally fix a productivity paradox.

The Bottom Line: The future is already here – be bold and be ready to tame the machines to enhance our lives and our work

William Gibson rightly said, “The future is already here; it’s just unevenly distributed.”

We sought early GenAI superstars to learn what’s working, what’s not, and what every enterprise leader should know to thrive. Like it or not, every business leader, worker, and student must heed these lessons from the leading edge.

Will there be speed bumps and dead ends? Of course, because progress is never a straight line. It’s true there are many unknowns, but it would be folly to stop and wait for the dust to settle (and what’s the fun in that, anyway?).

We don’t have all the answers. No one does, but we’ve learned a lot. We know it is not the time for fear or pearl-clutching. It’s time to invent, be bold, and tame the machines so they enhance our lives and work. Our early-phase innovators have given us critical lessons for the first playbook for our GenAI future. Let’s get going!

Postscript: The making of this playbook

Source: The authors, 2023

In May 2023, at the HFS Research Summit in New York, inspired by the ideas and provocations of the event, three of us stood around a stack of Post-it Notes (see Exhibit 1) and sketched out a set of hypotheses for how GenAI seemed likely to transform nearly every enterprise.

We continued to workshop the survey questions, interview protocol, and methods to ensure this study has something new, useful, and provocative to say based on insights and lessons learned from a small cohort of the most qualified people to provide guidance we can all use as we navigate the coming quarters and years.

We finished our planning and study design at an in-person working session in New York in the summer, collected data in the fall, and worked on the analysis into the early winter. We hope you like it!

Exhibit 1: Even a journey into GenAI must start with Post-it notes

Source: The authors, 2023

Your Generative Enterprise™ playbook for the future is an HFS Research and Ascendion research program based on 20+ in-depth interviews and a survey with more than 100 C-suite leaders and practitioners with first-hand experience implementing GenAI in organizations.

Watch out for more, and join us on the journey at HFS Research and Ascendion to access all our research findings.