How is AI Changing Business?
The Wharton School’s Stefano Puntoni discusses a new report revealing a dramatic change in corporate uses of artificial intelligence.
Generative artificial intelligence is growing up – evolving from a high-tech party trick into an essential tool that businesses are integrating into everyday operations, according to a new report created by marketing consultancy GBK Collective along with experts at Wharton.
“Growing Up: Navigating Gen AI’s Early Years” is a survey of more than 800 business leaders in large companies. The contents reveal a major change in both attitudes toward and applications of AI from 2023 to 2024. In 2023, the first year of the survey, only 37% of those surveyed used AI tools on a weekly basis. By 2024 however, that number jumped to 72%. In addition, negative attitudes toward generative tools such as skepticism are beginning to ease as leaders explore how this maturing technology can improve their firms.
Stefano Puntoni, a marketing professor and co-director of AI at Wharton, commented, “I was quite pleased to see the results. The picture we are getting is that people are learning about gen AI—and what they are learning, they like.” He co-authored the report with Jeremy Korst, a partner at GBK Collective, and Mary Purk, executive director of AI at Wharton.
The survey indicates that generative AI is being extensively utilized across various functions, even areas such as marketing and human resources, which were initially resistant to its adoption. The most common applications are in document and proposal writing and editing (64%), followed by data analysis and analytics (62%). Other notable uses include customer service (58%), fraud detection (55%), and financial forecasting (53%).
Puntoni explained that the survey also reveals that the divide between two extreme views on AI—one seeing it as a threat and the other as a sort of utopian technology—is narrowing. As people become more familiar with AI, they are less suspicious and fearful. They are increasingly open to experimenting with AI while acknowledging its limitations, such as the potential for false information, or “hallucinations.” The survey respondents listed primary concerns like accuracy, bias, data privacy, team integration, and ethics.
Looking ahead
Puntoni noted that the survey reflects a generally optimistic outlook on the future of AI, but he refrained from speculating on what the same questions might show in five years. However, he is certain of one thing: Organizations will continue experimenting with AI to determine how they can best utilize the technology. As AI develops, so will other technologies needed to make it more practical and user-friendly, such as voice interfaces.
“I don’t believe the hallucination problem is ever going to be completely solved, but it’s clear we are making massive progress,” he said. “There’s a lot of gas in the tank in terms of learning how to use this technology and developing complementary innovation.”
AI technology has been in development for multiple decades, yet Puntoni and his colleagues agree that the rapid progress in recent years has ushered in a new era for the field.
“This is only the beginning,” Puntoni said. “I think the big rewards are not going to come from doing things better; the big rewards are going to come from doing better things.”