As most industries have gotten the taste of AI’s low-hanging fruit – operational efficiency through automation, the question for visionary leaders is: What’s next?
Let us first examine the AI-interrupted reality today and tomorrow, before we prepare for the post-AI horizon.
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More and more businesses use AI to analyze data, automate processes, create content, even personalize customer experience. Open AI and the underlying data for its LLM can be accessed by all, and AI-enabled automation can be leveraged by all your competitors. AI is making your business increasingly the same as your competitors.
This is also true for industry-specific SLM (small language model) for bespoke applications, either off the shelf or custom-made: What’s available to you is also available to others.
The AI Revolution is changing more than the landscape of advanced manufacturing and labor intensive industries and services. AI is both disrupting and elevating the knowledge economy.
The knowledge economy is driven by and based on expertise, creativity, innovation, intellectual property, and specialized knowhow in sectors such as technology, R&D, media, consultancy, entertainment, and education.
With vast datasets and knowledge instantly available, AI is increasingly able to generate and process research, designs, analyses, and reports that used to take a lot of time for experts and professionals in the knowledge economy. AI is therefore commoditizing many aspects of knowledge work.
On the other hand, AI is freeing up humans to pursue higher-level knowledge, creativity, and innovation by automating drudgery and mundane work. The knowledge economy is getting more robust than ever, elevated by AI.
Through commoditizing knowledge services and products, AI is equalizing the playing field. By lowering the entry barriers through AI-enabled productivity efficiency, AI allows more competitive players in the knowledge economy.
What’s coming on the heels of the AI Revolution is the “Second Renaissance” of innovation and creativity.
The Second Renaissance refers to the unfolding great changes in human society and civilization, post AI Revolution in the 21st Century. The Second Renaissance will bring a flourishing of creativity and innovation in areas such as communication, media, science, financial and socio-economic structures, art, culture, politics and government, literature, space exploration, and technology innovation.
(The first Renaissance was a cultural movement and a period in European history that took place in the 15th and 16th centuries, according to Wikipedia. The term “Renaissance” is French for “rebirth”. The Renaissance was a time of great social change in many fields, including: art, architecture, politics, literature, exploration, and science.)
How do leaders prepare for the post-AI horizon, beyond the low-hanging fruit? As the reservoir of so-called “experts” swells, all having the same access to the overflow of knowledge, how does your business stand out from the crowd?
In the knowledge economy, your brand’s originality – unique value propositions, persona, shared beliefs – will be more important than ever since that’s the reason why customers choose your brand over others, and where customer loyalty starts.
As AI is commoditizing even creative aspects of knowledge work, a brand is not just nice to have, but a must have; brand building is not just an advantage – it’s a necessity.
While AI can do many things, it cannot replace the emotional and relational power of a strong, unique, and authentic brand that connects on a human level. In the age of AI, the difference between thriving and surviving lies in your ability to build such a brand.
Thanks to the sea of mediocrity resulting from AI’s ubiquitous reach, the knowledge economy and the upcoming Second Renaissance are the golden age to build a brand.
In the knowledge economy, your brand becomes your most valuable asset – a combination of trust, identity, and emotional resonance that sets you apart. By focusing on building a brand that connects on a human level, you are positioning yourself to be more than merely a successful business, but a powerful and unique brand to thrive in an AI-driven world.
The challenge for visionary leaders is to build an original and differentiated brand based on long lasting values, tested by humanity.
What is even harder, is to continuously impress and delight customers and earn long term brand loyalty. More than functional features in a product or service, a brand needs to cultivate its own persona and voice for the right target audience, with your brand structures, strategies, and stories that resonate with loyal customers based on shared values, aspirations, and trust.
In my free e-book “8 Essential Elements for Your Standout Brand”, I outlined steps to build a brand from the ground up – from the foundational work of DNA decoding.
Everything starts with the founder and CEO’s vision and values.
Build a brand from the top, by starting from the founder’s personal branding.
Then build a brand for the company s/he leads. Take Apple for example: Even though Steve Jobs’ vision is embedded in Apple’s DNA, Apple is not Steve Jobs. As a business brand, Apple has its own unique legacy that outlasts its founder’s personal brand.
Are you a visionary leader, with your eyes set on the horizon and feet planted in today’s actions, prepared for the future? If yes, today is the time to build a brand, tell its stories, create brand experience, magnify its power, and enhance its stature.
Stay ahead of AI – build a brand.
A Brand is your edge in the AI Age, where brand experience centered around human experience enhanced by AIXD is the winning recipe for success.
Please contact us to design, strategize, develop, and execute your standout brand.
This is part of a book Joanne Z. Tan is writing on brand building for leaders and organizations. Subscribers to the 10 Plus Brand Newsletter will get below market pricing and sneak previews for this upcoming book.
©Joanne Z. Tan all rights reserved.
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