The frenzied launch of ChatGPT in 2022 has sparked rapid growth and development in generative artificial intelligence (AI). Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2024 report reflects on how generative AI impacted businesses through 2023 and looks ahead to the next 12 months. Many business and IT leaders are interested in using generative AI to improve their operations.
The generative AI technology has drawn widespread interest due to its user-friendly and intuitive nature, enabling people of all technical levels to utilize it. Moreover, generative AI can outperform humans in various tasks, although it is unlikely to replace human knowledge workers on a large scale.
Despite the concern about generative AI replacing jobs, most business leaders aim to leverage the technology to improve business operations rather than reduce headcount. According to Deloitte, generative AI’s true value lies in transforming business functions, cutting costs, disrupting product and service cycles, and creating process efficiencies.
Despite these potential benefits, there are significant risks associated with generative AI. The technology’s ability to imitate human dialogue and reasoning could be exploited by bad actors to carry out harmful tasks like cyber attacks. Generative AI applications can create convincing malicious content that is difficult for people to detect.
One common form of cyber attack is phishing, which sees the sending of 3.4 billion spam emails daily. Generative AI can create malicious content in various formats, including voice and video, presenting challenges for businesses to detect and prevent these attacks.
To address these challenges, businesses should focus on maintaining quality and accessible enterprise data, establishing effective governance guardrails, and adopting generative AI gradually rather than rushing the process.
In conclusion, the report underscores the need for businesses to strike a balance in leveraging generative AI by focusing on the technology’s positive potential while preparing for its potential risks and negative impacts.
