In the new frontier of generative AI, fundamentals of how we approach work and technology are all shaken up. And keeping pace comes with increasing data needs for IT professionals. In order to manage, Matt Wallace, advisor to Faction, advises adopting a multi-cloud strategy.
Wallace spoke with StrategicCIO360 about exactly how AI has affected cloud technology, and how tech leaders can accelerate their diversification.
What are the top three ways artificial intelligence is transforming business?
Artificial intelligence is speeding up the way we work. It varies across roles, industries and organizations, but some aggressive early adopters are seeing significant gains.
AI is changing priorities, especially at the leadership level. CIOs now understand they face a fundamentally significant technological wave that will have both short- and long-term impacts. Many IT-related activities from email and content to software development, to workflows are being transformed by AI.
In the long run, it is expected that fine-tuned models, more broad adoption of conversational memory, agents, retrieval-augmented generation and more will dramatically change how we work and communicate.
Lastly, AI forces us to ask fundamental questions about how business and work are done. While this feels like the “Internet in 1994” where the potential feels almost limitless, a lot of work needs to be done. Now, many must reason from first principles again because of the level of disruption we can foresee. Businesses must proactively assess how implementing an AI strategy will help transform how they’re doing work across the organization.
How is the implementation of artificial intelligence tools speeding up multi-cloud adoption strategies?
In some cases, the need to leverage AI services and assets is driving multi-cloud. The AI services provided by public cloud providers are unequal and differentiated, so having a single “chosen cloud” is less acceptable to many larger enterprises.
AI is slowly changing, but interestingly, the definitions of what you can do across clouds, for example, the ability of generative AI to help normalize configurations, log handling, and accelerate learning and productivity, really moves the bar.
Lastly, advances in AI are leading companies to rely on data for strategic decision making and that can necessitate accelerating their multi-cloud strategy to properly handle all of this data. The amazing diversity in AI-related services across clouds is driving enterprises to mix and match services across clouds to maximize the value of their data and the pace of their efforts.
What advice do you have for CIOs who are looking to revamp their multi-cloud strategy?
It’s key to consider how cloud service diversity is increasing. Each major cloud service offers unique benefits and differentiators, so it really comes down to what works best for an organization. Cloud diversity is a good thing for IT departments, it provides a range of choices to meet specific needs. Different requirements mean different options are needed.
As CIOs tackle this task, they need to measure the value of flexibility, optionality and diversity of services for their organization’s teams and use cases. As businesses start looking at revamping their multi-cloud strategies, they’ll likely find that it provides a competitive advantage and ultimately helps manage the heaps of data and applications that they need to run day in and day out.
Do you think AI will continue to force CIOs to reexamine what technologies they have in place across organizations?
In so many ways, gen AI will change what and how we expect people to do their jobs. Skills will need to be learned and updated, the way we communicate will change, the ability to analyze data, correct faults, and connect and automate the enterprise will accelerate and how we find and use enterprise data will improve. Gen AI will amplify the value of long-term valuable resources curated within an organization.
