A.I. adoption is no longer just about reducing costs—it’s about growing revenue

A.I. continues to make strong inroads into corporate operations, as yesterday’s conversation among executives at Fortune’s Brainstorm A.I. virtual event demonstrated. And it’s no longer just about reducing costs, it’s about growing revenue. New research from Accenture, which sponsored yesterday’s event, suggests early adopters are reaping substantial dividends:

“The companies who are building comprehensive artificial intelligence capabilities, who have the foundation of building a platform but also the right level of organization support and sponsorship…these companies are already experiencing 50% higher revenue growth than their peers.”
—Sanjeev Vohra, senior managing director and global lead, Accenture Applied Intelligence

But it was also clear from the conversation that A.I. remains far from delivering on some of its more-ballyhooed promises. Some excerpts from the conversation:

“What people really want—and this is my vision for our company—is to re-create the human travel agent that those of us who are older can remember…They would know what you could afford and know what you like…and God forbid anything went wrong, you made one call and it all got fixed. What we want is to re-create that human being into technology. And we are so far from that.”
—Glenn Fogel, CEO, Booking Holdings

“Health care has been later in the cycle than other industries [in adopting A.I.], and a large reason for that is the conservative nature of physicians, the conservative nature of hospitals, and the regulatory framework which acts as a deterrent to fast adoption of new technology.”
—Kevin Lobo, CEO, Stryker

“Visa using A.I. helps prevent about $26 billion in fraud. So those are big numbers.”
—Michael Nunes, senior director and head of government advisory, Visa

“Where we are now is going on a journey, where you put A.I. in every pillar of the company. You talk about audit, you talk about HR, you talk about supply chain. And what we are seeing is that we are now kind of moving into higher-level use cases. Initially they were all testing the water. There was a lot of anxiety. But now we are seeing people with much meatier use cases surfacing.”
—Rohit Chauhan, EVP, A.I., Mastercard

“I would say machine learning today is almost everywhere. I know company deep learning is probably the next step.”
—Alexis Garcin, CEO, Michelin North America

“My background is in building social and emotional intelligence into our machines. I’m seeing a lot more interest in a number of areas such as the future of work. We can now quantify a Zoom meeting like this and basically break it down by airtime and give you a lot of metrics that didn’t exist before.”
—Rana el Kaliouby, deputy CEO, Smart Eye

“If there is a recession, I don’t think it’s going to change anyone’s A.I. agenda. It is a must-have, it’s not a nice to have.”
—Will Breetz, SVP of product management, Salesforce

“We’re measuring vibration, we’re measuring atmospheric pressure, and we’re using that information to predict when a potential failure may happen and how do we send our mechanics to the job site with the appropriate tools, with the appropriate parts.”
—Neil Green, EVP and chief digital officer, Otis Elevator Co.

The event is part of the lead-up to our Brainstorm A.I. event, being held in San Francisco on Dec. 5–6. If you are interested in attending, please send me a note, or go here for details. Other news below.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

TOP NEWS

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Combustion engines

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AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

Gun control

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted through legislation that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines and raise the minimum age for buying most semiautomatic rifles to 21. However, Senate Republicans will likely block or water down the measures. Fortune

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El Salvador

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Zero COVID

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This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.