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Its no surprise that A.I. implementation comes with a steep learning curve. That doesnt mean its not worth the trouble.
If youre hoping to be a future-focused business leader, you need to force yourself to use A.I., Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, told Fortunes Peter Vanham last week during an interview on Fortune Connect, Fortunes executive leadership community.
Whether or not youre already a tech whiz, or even whether your specific role relies on generative A.I. like ChatGPT, its incumbent upon leaders to get up-to-speed on its applications and potential next turns. Thats certainly the case for Tagen. He manages the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is the worlds largest single investor. The fund has a stake in over 9,000 global companiesincluding Apple, Nestlé, Microsoft, and Samsungand owns about 1.5% of all the listed companies in the world.
As with the bulk of Fortune 500 giants, A.I. adoption is impossible to overlook; and neither executives nor rank-and-file workers should wait to upskill. A recent Fortune survey of Fortune 500 CEOs found that predictive A.I., which is best for analyzing reams of databy a landslideis the technology they expect to create the most opportunities for business in the next decade.
Hailing from an older generationor just simply being out of touchis no excuse, Tangen said. If youre an older person, and you dont really have experience, get some of the young guys to help you, Tangen advised. The new iterations of A.I. have kind of turned the value of seniority upside down a bit, he added.
But young workers may beg to differ. The idea that the younger you are, the more you know about A.I. could be a misnomer. Nearly 40% of Gen Z workers said they dont believe their college education adequately prepared them for the tech-related needs of the modern workplace, per a recent Dell Technologies survey. Over half said they have very basic or even zero digital know-how. Luckily, having grown up very online, theyre more likely to catch on quickly and become A.I. natives.
And ultimately, young workers educating older workers is a good thing, Tangen said. Its a very democratic software; you can be an idiot like me and get value out of it, because you basically just talk to the machine, he laughed. Its really unbelievably powerful.
Harnessing the power
Tangens expectations and concerns align squarely with those of other major executives. Andy Bird, CEO of education giant Pearson Education, recently told Fortune Connect that to remain competitive in the job market, most workers have no choice but to become A.I.-fluent.
In many ways, technology and A.I. are moving faster than real life, Bird said. Were struggling to catch up, and the impact that that has on us both as individuals and as companies is the need to continually re-skill and upskill.
Indeed, A.I. has made its way into daily operations at thousands of businesses. On any given day at French pharma and healthcare giant Sanofi, 9,000 people10% of the companyare using A.I., its CEO Paul Hudson told Fortune Connect. There are going to be companies that [dont adopt A.I., and] really try to hold everybody back, Hudson added. I think they wont be able to compete.
Tangen echoed Hudson and Bird, saying A.I. is just a completely transformative thing. Applications like ChatGPT and its ever-expanding list of competitors will transform everything people do, within and beyond the office.
Its happening very fast in my mindits a bit like being on Apollo 11, going out into space, Tangen told Vanham. Its really exciting, but its also a bit scary at the same time. And while large-scale implementation can seem daunting, Tangen is keeping his eyes on the immediate future.
We just need to target 10% productivity improvement in the firm over the next 12 months, he said. That shouldnt be too difficult; a recent study from MIT and Stanford found that A.I. improves worker productivity by 14%. Thats good news for bosses and workers alikeso long as they dont work in jobs that A.I. might steal.
