Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai Jerod Harris/Getty Images Companies need to integrate AI quickly if they want to remain competitive, says Ark Invest’s Brett Winton. The AI transition is being driven by a stressed enterprise landscape that delivers solutions without huge costs. Microsoft will outperform Google in the long term, despite higher costs for AI search engines.
Artificial intelligence could be the catalyst for a rapid make-or-break era in the corporate world.
So says Brett Winton, chief futurist at Ark Invest, who told CNBC on Wednesday that companies that don’t start integrating the new technology soon could be left behind and even risk bankruptcy if they compete with those that are do.
“If you don’t run that race, you won’t be in the race at the end of this business cycle,” he said.
Driven in part by headline-grabbing AI developments from companies like Microsoft and Google, Winton believes the technology’s adoption has also been fueled by current macroeconomic issues companies are facing.
“The fact that corporate budgets are likely under pressure right now allows them to be like, ‘Hey, how can we do more with the same number of people? line?’” he said. “AI provides that solution.”
Although he thinks the systems’ capabilities are already sufficient to make them usable – and even points out that companies like Coca-Cola have started to integrate AI – Winton adds that progress is accelerating as costs fall will win.
“It’s the equivalent of taking the entire smartphone lifecycle — from the original smartphone to today’s iPhone — and compressing it down to three years in terms of performance progression,” he said.
The switch to AI will also mean changes for the search engine hierarchy, said Winton, referring to the development race between Google and Microsoft.
Although the new, AI-powered Bing could mean higher costs for Microsoft compared to a traditional web search, the adoption of the technology will eventually displace Google as the dominant search engine, he says.
Currently, Microsoft shares are down nearly 7% from a February high of $272 per share that followed the AI-centric Bing update. The company continues to push the technology and recently announced that the new search engine features will be available on mobile phones.
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