This year the buzz has been focused on artificial intelligence with the popularity of large-language models putting the power of machine learning on display to more people than ever. The froth over AI has taken hold in marketing presentations and investor pitches, and it would be reasonable to wonder if artificial intelligence will revolutionize business as some predict.

I look at the power of artificial intelligence in the context of my work helping businesses grow and scale. As a technologist, I get excited about new technologies and their adoption. It is normal for those of us who enjoy technology for its own sake to wonder why anyone wouldn’t want to adopt new technologies. I realize the hard truth of being a technology leader is new technologies are only as good as they help accelerate the meeting of a business objective.

At an executive level, most business objectives can be expressed in terms of eventual revenue growth or margin expansion. Selling more or earning more. It may seem like you have objectives that are outside these two because the eventual impact is over a very long term. You may be investing now and losing money to gain outsized margins and revenue growth in the long term. However, if what you’re doing does not eventually support one of these two measures you probably need to question the value.

Turning back to AI, the value appears directly tied to the ability of machines to take up work previously done by people. It is also possible for AI to be doing something that people could do but was impractical given the effort involved. You might not scour thousands of medical records over hundreds of hours to find one patient that met certain criteria unless it was life or death. However, if a machine can do that at a lower cost, it might suddenly become worthwhile. The value AI is delivering is a super-charged innovation of automation.

Answering the question, “Will AI revolutionize business?” lands at the feet of whether there are opportunities to automate work that previously was expensive or impossible. There are certainly cases where this is true with models able to interpret text and images and make an assessment that previously required a human. There are cases where something is now possible using AI but only impacts business goals marginally.

As for any technology, ask yourself can AI help grow our revenue or expand our margin? Does it allow us to offer a service we previously did not because it was too costly? Do not lose sight of the fact that your job as a technical leader is to support the goals of the business with any innovation you bring to the executive team.