At India Strategy Conference, experts discuss aspects of strategising in AI-dominated world

Ahmedabad, Dec 19 (PTI) The 2nd edition of the India Strategy Conference (ISC 2024) concluded at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) on Wednesday with eminent speakers discussing various aspects of strategising in an AI-dominated world.

The event was jointly organised by IIMA, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), and the Indian School of Business (ISB) from December 15 to 18 on the theme of "Strategizing in an AI-Dominated World", the premier management institute said in a release on Thursday.

With six parallel tracks that explored diverse aspects of global business strategy in an AI-dominated world, including environment, society and governance, internationalisation, innovation and digital transformation, among others.

In his inaugural address, IIMA Director Prof Bharat Bhasker said, "India has arrived at the stage where we need to have our own thought processes and our own learnings from the industry and academia and bring it all together to share that advanced knowledge and application of knowledge with the rest of the world." He elaborated on how we all have been slowly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our lives for the past three decades and explained how AI and strategy-making are similar in nature.

"Both AI and strategy-making require similar strengths, such as the ability to visualise long-term, analyse and get insights and deep-learning from the data. With the emergence of computing power and AI, many of these tasks have been taken over by technology-assisted tools," he said.

"However, the human brain is far more complex and higher in strength. So, it is important to deliberate on how we can make use of the current level of their computing power and AI tools for our benefit," he added.

Professor Jeffrey J Reuer, Blake Family Endowed Chair in Strategic Management and Governance at Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue University, delivered the inaugural keynote address on the topic of 'Corporate Strategy Ramifications of AI'.

In the second keynote address, Professor Prithwiraj Choudhury, Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, talked about 'Shaping the Future of Work with AI'.

Speaking about the emerging work trends, he said, "The world is witnessing a new phenomenon and that is organisations or companies completely shunning physical offices and still growing up to some scale." He also touched upon the pros and cons of remote work in comparison with physical work and said that finding a middle ground can work wonders.

He also highlighted that in the future, AI is going to take an important role as a procedural partner in the world of strategy because of its ability to predict the future based on the past and we need the domain expertise of workers to have any positive productivity by using AI tools, the release said. PTI PJT PD NP