The 15^th annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium (May 23^rd, 2018) had as its byline, “Up Your Digital Game: From Vision to Execution”. Well attended and engaging, it was clear that “Digital” was flexible enough to accommodate any future-oriented use case, whether linked to internal productivity or prowess around clients. Any talk of Gartner’s bi-modal IT was very much “yesterday”. Absolutely “in”: AI and machine learning.

While I am not a fan of panel discussions, and the CIO Symposium always favors these, there were some interesting ones. “Creating a Digital Culture” had Tanguy Catlin of McKinsey, David Gledhill of DBS Bank, Andrei Oprisan of Liberty Mutual and Melissa Swift of Korn Ferry Hay Group. George Westerman of MIT started with a presentation on how digital innovation is accelerating. He gave examples of recent advances in AI. There are algorithms that summarize lengthy texts well, AI that beats the Stanford reading text, AI-powered medical diagnostics that beat the doctor, AI software that can clone anyone’s voice after listening for just 3.7 seconds! Continue reading →