Video
Prashant Sarin, a partner with Bain's Technology practice and a Young Global Leader, discusses three key takeaways from the 2017 World Economic Forum, which include insights on the future of technology and business.
Read the transcript below.
PRASHANT SARIN: Davos was fantastic. Three key takeaways: The first one is that the forces of technology that we hear about—things like artificial intelligence or machine learning or pattern recognition, the Internet of Things—all of this is real and is unfolding at an incredible pace. Companies around the world ignore these trends only at their peril.
The second key takeaway for me was really around the fact that companies need to think quite carefully about where they want to double down and invest themselves, vs. where they want to partner with other people. The opportunity is immense, but the resource requirements in terms of the human capital as well as investments required are also immense. And you need to take a deliberate, thoughtful approach in terms of thinking about where you want to invest.
And the final piece was the ethical and moral implications of the world today. Especially as we think about these new technologies—artificial intelligence or robotics. Advances in these fields are improving at breakneck speed. And if you think about it quite carefully, what 100 people are doing in research labs across the world is going to impact 7 billion people around the world over the next 10 or 20 years. Thinking quite carefully about how we balance the technology vs. the social and ethical requirements is going to be a key requirement for companies around the world.