Conference Presentation, Panel
Big Data and Creating Customer Growth in the Age of A.I.
Milken InstituteSumant Mandal, David Eun, Michael Flaskey, John R. Shrewsberry, Michael Sutcliff, David Rockefeller Jr., Eric Schmidt, Danny Warshay, Amit Singhal, Amit Fulay, Anil Ananthaswamy, John McWhorter, Mike Hayes, David Kwong, Amir Jinairazi
- Every company is expected to evolve into an AI and technology-driven entity within the next one to two years, driven by smarter data usage and infrastructure shifting toward edge nodes with increased interactivity.
- Future infrastructure will rely heavily on edge devices like smartphones, cars, and home systems to process data locally, reducing latency for autonomous vehicles and managing textured data types including 3D video, AR/VR, and streaming health information.
- Businesses face a shift in customer demographics and expectations, such as Diamond Resorts targeting Millennials with a 10-year term product system-wide soon, and Wells Fargo adapting to customers who demand personalized experiences but may lack loyalty to single entities.
- The technology sector anticipates a transition from static data rows to complex, multi-dimensional data streams, while major internet companies are predicted to maintain competitive moats based on consumer data for the next five to 10 years.
- Data privacy and regulation are expected to become increasingly flexible yet complex, with concerns that European constraints may affect global markets and companies needing to offer users more control over data sharing across the stack.
- Labor markets will likely see fluidity and a "gig mentality," with tools replacing dull, dirty, or dangerous jobs and specific fields like radiology requiring professionals to adjust to machines that may outperform specialized experts in accuracy.
- Physical retail and banking branches are under global threat but will not disappear entirely; they will evolve to serve complex life events like retirement or home purchases while mundane transactions move to embedded, context-based digital interfaces.
- AI advancement includes the development of neuromorphic chips and the use of quantum computing to address auditability issues in deep learning, though artificial general intelligence remains distant from enabling full autonomous company management.
- China is projected to leapfrog Europe and the US in medical innovation pace due to anonymized record availability, while consumer finance is expected to become significantly more automated and mobile within a decade.
- Significant risks include unintended effects of data protection policies, the difficulty of auditing massive computational scales, and the potential for some jobs to be threatened as foundational work becomes more efficient, even if human judgment remains essential for complex decisions.