Founder and CSO of Bioz, the most comprehensive AI search engine for life science experimentation. Former Stanford cancer researcher.Everywhere we look, we see companies moving away from legacy technologies towards new technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), big data, neural networks, the internet of things (IoT), etc. It feels like technology is able to disrupt industry after industry, almost like a domino effect. This disruption brings real value by increasing speed, lowering effort, reducing cost and, at the end of the day, delivering better results.
This technological disruption is not just changing businesses, it's actually revolutionizing our lives across both business and society. In fact, we are living today in a new era with new frontiers. Today, we are experiencing the strongest effect of digital technologies ever, and I am not the only one wondering "what next?"
According to PwC:
"By the year 2020, an entire generation, Generation C (for “connected”), will have grown up in a primarily digital world. Computers, the internet, mobile phones, texting, social networking -- all are second nature to members of this group. And their familiarity with technology, reliance on mobile communications, and a desire to remain in contact with large networks of family members, friends and business contacts will transform how we work and how we consume."
Different Sectors In A Different League
Not all sectors of the market have adopted digital technologies at the same pace. On one hand, you see broad adoption of digital technology in sectors such as communications, media, software, finance and professional services, where productivity has grown 2.7% annually for the past 15 years. In other sectors, such as transportation, education, health care, manufacturing and retail, productivity grew a mere 0.7% annually over the same period.
In a recent study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), where they examined the levels of digitization over different sectors of the U.S. economy, they saw a large and growing gap between sectors and between companies within those sectors. Out of 22 sectors identified in a recent Harvard Business Review article, the health care sector took the disreputable 19th place, third from the bottom on the “relative digitalization” scale, while the information and communications technology took first place -- no surprise there. What we see is that some companies aren't taking digitization seriously while others are in an entirely different league in regards to their technology. The gaps are huge and outrageous, begging for a change, with companies in leading sectors employing workforces that are 13 times more digitally engaged than the rest of the economy.
Moonshot Companies Are Leaving The Rest In The Dust
Many technology companies don’t hold traditional assets, with a few obvious examples including Google's dominance of search, Facebook’s powerful lead in social, Amazon’s massive authority in e-commerce, Uber's lead in ridesharing and Airbnb, which has become a dominant player in accommodation. Who will the future digital leaders that disrupt industries be? What is next? Where will we see the biggest need to push to new frontiers?
In the lagging technology sectors, digital influence can be arbitrary and partial; some companies have made improvements in some areas but left behind fundamental functionality. For example, many health care companies use new digital and advanced technologies for diagnostics and even treatment, such as blood tests that can rapidly detect signs of pancreatic cancer. In other significant areas like in managing their workforce, however, they use no or very limited technology. It looks like the health care sector, and the bio-research sector within it, are very much lagging in terms of technology, even though both sectors affect every single person on this planet.
The next big breakthrough in technology will combine the intersection of biology and technology. This unique breed of biotech and pharma with tech and information technology (IT) will open up a new era for developing novel therapies based on data-driven, AI-based technologies. It was Steve Jobs that said “I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.” I hope he is right.
Evidently, we should all start by identifying what our technology priorities and needs are and evaluating the value that these technologies contribute to society. Once the gaps have been identified, management and leaders should design plans to deliver impactful changes. Such changes can only accrue when strong leaders use their voice, make real change and take into consideration each technology’s capabilities, the assets available, the usage and the labor required to implement.
Such leaders should be politicians, activists, business professionals, teachers and parents. The responsibility is on all of us. In the next decade, we will see an inevitable and continued proliferation of more and more companies that develop new AI-based software tools. We will see a mindset developing whereby data-centric solutions become the future tools that are used to solve real-world problems. I strongly believe that we should all do what we can to support this positive transition to data-centricity. Innovations such as these will shift our society tremendously and will affect each and every one of us one way or another. I call for greater individual leadership and responsibility. Each and every one of us should give thought to how they can move us all forward towards a more digital, data-driven, efficient future.
