How exclusive partnerships shape the Al landscape

In the tech space, disruptions arrive in waves.

- ISHA SURI & RAJAT KATHURIA.

The latest, of course, is artificial intelligence (AI), which has gripped the world by a proverbial storm. One of its most striking manifestations is the sheer pace of adoption. Think about it: Fixedline telephony, the very cornerstone of 20th-century communication, took a staggering 25 years to reach 1 million users in the United States. Pagers took a decade, and the mobile phone slightly less. The internet, a seismic shift in itself, took about five years, and Facebook less than a year. But the most breathtaking leap came with ChatGPT-the world's current favourite generative AI tool. It took a mere five days to cross the one million user threshold globally. This captures the hyper-accelerated nature of modern digital technology, where products can become a global sensation overnight! What's more, the pace of adoption isn't just faster; it's fundamentally different. Usage is an order of magnitudehigher, captivating consumers' mind space while simultaneously e onveying significant amounts of information to companies about their tastes and preferences.

It's not that AI itself is a new phenomenon; it has been around for over 50 years. However, the complementary ecosystem is vastly different. Chips are now lighting fast, algorithms have become far superior, storage is abundant and cheap, and training data is omnipresent. Naturally, the opportunities are boundless, but so too are the costs. Lest the reader suspects this is another article bemoaning AI perish the thought. This is about recognising its immense ability, but also the urgent need for preemption before it's too late.