What we’re excited to see in 2023
As we kick off the new year, we’re looking ahead at three areas of innovation and business implementation we think 2023 will bring.
Upskilling with digital transformation
According to McKinsey’s Global Survey on AI, companies that have adopted artificial intelligence in at least one business area have more than doubled since 2017. And while that number has sort of stagnated in recent years since the pandemic, the average number of AI embedded into specific functions, such as process automation, computer vision (visual processing), and natural-language generation, has doubled since 2018.
From a practical standpoint, these numbers make sense. Many companies may not have seen the benefit of transforming an entire business area in the face of change management costs, talent shortages, and turbulent markets over the last three years. However, the benefits of smaller, functional changes are becoming increasingly difficult to deny.
“A set of companies seeing the highest financial returns from AI continue to pull ahead of competitors.”
-McKinsey & Company
We think that 2023 will see more of these functional AI adopters pull ahead from their competition, which will only promote further digital transformation from those looking to keep up. From a business development perspective, the opportunity for talent upskilling with AI adoption is massive. A small example is utilizing automated processing and/or language generation. Instead of spending time looking for boilerplate text or case studies, AI could serve up initial suggestions based on keywords. It could even help with drafting a new response or catching errors, allowing your resources to focus on higher-order crafting, editing, and revising.
The competitive advantage of interpersonal relationships
2020 was the year of re-structuring working relationships around remote operations. 2021 was the year marked by returning to offices and hybrid operations. And 2022 had a feeling of reclusion, with reports of burnout rates reaching all-time highs.
We see 2023 as the year of rising interpersonal relationships. At this point, most clients and teams have identified their preferred way of working. Some clients enjoy the personal touch of in-person visits; while others prefer the convenience of remote meetings. If you know or are able to discern your target clients’ preferences, it can be a significant competitive advantage. Imagine having a decision-maker who loves in-person meetings. Being able to show up in person for a pitch when procurement offers everyone a Zoom call can offer a huge advantage. Or inversely, imagine a client who loves staying in touch constantly rather than only at the larger checkpoints—collaborating with them remotely would go a long way in making them an advocate for your work.
Augmented reality & pitches
Virtual reality (VR) has come a long way over the last few years; however, we don’t think it has quite reached the point of blanket application. In a recent conversation with the owners of a VR arcade, we learned that if users haven’t had a lot of experience with VR, they can often experience motion sickness if the content on-screen requires too much in-app movement. From a presentation pitch perspective, we can certainly see the competitive advantage of using VR ONLY if the decision-makers and the content fit the context of its usage. In most cases, we think that augmented reality is more likely to be successful in a pitch scenario, as it will allow decision-makers to visualize something in space, without needing to interact with anything in motion.