ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott says there’s no bigger risk than being a generative AI ‘fast follower’

Generative AI is having its iPhone moment. You’ve probably heard that phrase before, signifying a game-changing technology that is enjoying almost instant adoption. But there’s one very important difference. I remember when Steve Jobs brought a batch of pre-release iPhones to show to a Blackberry-addicted group of Wall Street Journal editors in 2007, and one of them said: “I’m not sure this will work for the enterprise market.”

Jobs shot back: “I don’t give a s—t about the enterprise market.” Jobs’ goal was to make a product the consumer loved, and over time—he correctly assumed—consumers would bring it into their businesses. Generative AI, on the other hand, has gone, if not enterprise-first, at least enterprise-coincident.

I spoke yesterday with ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, whose efforts to bring AI into the enterprise drove his company’s 25% revenue growth in the latest quarter. His take:

“What people are seeing here is an exponential increase in productivity. That is enabling them to deal with this macro environment…two wars going on, high interest rates, the post-COVID hangover. AI is helping them increase productivity, take out costs, and grow revenue. This is the iPhone moment for the enterprise. It will completely and fundamentally change all the rules of the game. Only the strong will survive.”

I told McDermott I was hearing executives at some companies say that concerns about data protection, intellectual property, and hallucinations were making them take a pause and plan to become “fast followers” rather than leaders in generative AI. McDermott was instantly dismissive:

“I can’t think of a bigger risk than being a ‘fast follower’ in adopting generative AI…If you don’t have 20 or more projects right now experimenting with generative AI, you are taking a huge risk.”

One reason for generative AI’s wide adoption, of course, is its ease of use. But users would still be wise to study its strengths and weaknesses. Good news on that front: AI guru Andrew Ng—of Google and Baidu fame—is releasing his Coursera course “Generative AI for Everyone” next week. I’m halfway through his previous course, “AI for Everyone,” which has been downloaded by over a million users. Says Ng:

“I think Gen AI has such a low barrier to entry that people in all walks of life and all professions should learn a bit about it, and jump in and start using it as a thought partner.”

Ng’s style is so lucid—particularly when giving real-world examples of when the technology works well and when it doesn’t—I would recommend it for…well, everyone. As someone first said—no one can remember any longer who or when—your job isn’t going to be taken away by AI, but it may be taken away by someone who knows how to use AI.

More news below.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

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This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.