Source: Forbes, Author: Mark Cohen, CEO of Legal Mosaic, a legal business consultancy.
A MUST read article by Mark Cohen for all inhouse counsels, legal ops and private practice lawyers who genuinely aspire to help their clients. The article is full of gems and thought provoking comments. Well done and many thanks Mark.
The Pandemic accelerated the transition from an analog to a digital world. Concurrently, the accelerating pace and scope of technological change, a shifting geopolitical order, the widespread retreat from globalism to nationalism, collectivism to tribalism, economic uncertainty, mass migration, climate change, a dearth of digital talent, and an expanding array of new business risks (cyber and data security, supply chain threats, etc.) have intensified the need and heightened the difficulty of successful enterprise digital transformation.
Then came Generative Artificial Intelligence (“Gen AI”).
Gen AI has further accelerated the speed, expanded the breadth, elevated the stakes, and rendered existential the urgency of end-to-end enterprise transformation. Gen AI’s public debut in late 2022 presaged its breakout 2023, a year marked by astonishing technological advances, a global frenzy of excitement and angst, massive investment, feverish search for use cases, and checkered adoption in search of a strategy.
Accenture’s Pulse of Change Index, an annual measure of six change factors affecting business –technology, talent, economic, geopolitical, consumer/social, and climate- recorded the highest change rate on record in 2023. Gen AI became the new #1 change agent cited by C-Suite Executives; 88% of C-Suite respondents expect an even faster rate of change in 2024.
Gen AI’s impact as a technological breakthrough is only part of the story. Even more important is how human beings will use it—for good, responsibly, and for the betterment of the collective good or a darker, ad hoc, socioeconomically destructive way? Gen AI’s impact on the human psyche is immense. Humans have never experienced a technology that rivals—and already sometimes eclipses— their creativity, reasoning, and ability to solve complex cognitive challenges. This is redolent of T.S. Eliot’s Journey of the Magi: “I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different….”
Gen AI’s impact on society, business, work, the workforce, and the workplace cannot be overstated. Paradoxically, it elevates the challenge of human adaptation to navigate a world whose new normal is constant, accelerating, and multidimensional change. At the same time, it offers a powerful tool to help navigate it.
Read the full article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2024/07/16/creating-a-gen-ai-era-legal-function-what-it-means-why-it-matters-and-where-to-start/
