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| November 19, 2024 |
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The promises of greatness swirling around generative AI are many, and most—we’re going to put this kindly—have yet to be proven. But one place where generative AI (GenAI) is showing promise is coming up with new product ideas. It’s a specific kind of promise, however, which, put another way, is: Don’t fall into the quantity-over-quality trap. We’ll explain. We also have another installment of our new research, this time looking at what midsize banks are doing to stay relevant. A lot. Lastly, greening transportation systems is complex and important. We explain why.
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| AI |
| GenAI Ideas |
| Your next big thing. A particularly interesting application of GenAI tools is using them to come up with new products. Companies want to get the most out of their AI investments, of course, and the most innovative teams are figuring out how to use AI to come up with novel ideas. We say, “figuring out” because it’s not as simple as asking ChatGPT, “Come up with ideas that will make our company loads of money.” Oh, that it was! But with the right guidance, AI can be used to very quickly offer loads of possibilities for humans to size up. |
| Speedy ideas—but keep them to yourself. While GenAI can send ideas into warp speed, human supervision is crucial. Humans will know what their customers and markets really need. In fact, flip the script a bit: People come up with the first ideas, and then use GenAI to make them better. But a bit of advice: Keep your ideas—and data—close to your chest. Avoid, if possible, public AI, because company data and ideas could be shared with other users and used as training data. |
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Not sure where to get started? Think of your customers’ most pressing and important problems. Then come up with the right prompts, and that’s really where the art of GenAI comes into play. The results you get are only as good as your prompts, so it’s worth working on them. You can use text prompts to get text descriptions of ideas, and you can use text to describe something and the AI will produce a product image. Understanding the difference and refining the results could result in your next killer product.
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| The four basic best practices: “How to Lean on GenAI for New Product Ideas.” |
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| Research |
| Midsize Banks Are Growing |
| Your neighborhood bank. The latest in our research series looks at the specific challenges midsize banks face. Their competition has grown impressively in the last decade-ish: Financial startups, fintech, big banks expanding, and digital life in general. Midsize banks’ keyword for the next year: more. They’re looking for more partners, more distribution, and more market presence in order to grow. But they’ll also need to improve their supply chains, internal cultures, and data connectivity. |
| Banking on smaller. These financial institutions intend to spend their own money, and they’ll put it into upgrading their data and analytics technologies, software, and other steps to help streamline processes. Major goals include improving management decision-making and improving the customer experience. Smaller banks have an edge: They can be more personal and more flexible in response to customer wants. But they need the tools to grow alongside their client base. |
| Read more: “To Grow, Midsize Banks Need Better Data and Analytics.” |
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| Department of Timeliness: World Sustainable Transport Day is November 26 |
| Getting a Move on Green |
| Old habits die hard. Think of the most postcard things about Amsterdam, and bicycles are probably somewhere high on the list. Those simple black bikes are the workhouse of Dutch personal transportation. But that’s actually a pretty recent development. The 1970s was the era when cycling activists began to question the role of cars in the city, and so began the development of safe cycling infrastructure. That serves as an object lesson: Questioning how we (and the things we buy) get from A to B can trigger big change. |
| And transportation of many types needs that change. Transport is one of the sectors where improving efficiency, accessibility, and general greenness have enormous ripple effects. Improving air quality, economic outcomes, and food, job, and education access are just some of the areas where the quality and availability of good transportation makes an enormous difference. But transportation is also a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions—about 25% of the latter. Looking at a number like that, it’s obvious that finding better and more sustainable ways to move people and things around is a big U-turn. But it can be done. |
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Read some related stories:
“Sustainable Logistics on the Move.”
“World Sustainable Transport Day.”
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| Data and Analytics |
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| Three Stories That Haven’t Hit Your Inbox |
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| Highlighting the best research about technology intersecting with the future of business, the future of work, and the future of innovation. |
| Combo deal. Funny how we thought that humans could best use AI for making better decisions. Wrong! In fact, the human-AI combo is better with collabing on creative work. The takeaway: Set procedures for when to use each. (Nature Human Behaviour) |
| Climate accounting. How much does it cost to make something? The true cost of manufacturing includes accounting for the damage it does to the climate—and it’s a doozy: About $79 million just in the United States. Time for an adjustment to both price and process? (Environmental Research Letters) |
| CSR costs. Highlighting corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity is good business. But where is the business coming from? Mostly new customers who like the message. The downside, however, is along the supply chain. New suppliers might not be fans, because CSR could be more work for them, and that could leave companies relying on their existing supplier pool. (The Conversation) |
| Disclaimer: SAP is not affiliated with and is not endorsing any third party website or content and is not responsible for any of the content on the page or website. |
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Warehouse automation: How AI, robots and Internet of Things boost a booming opportunity.
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| Lead the digital business conversation. |
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