Paul Daugherty spent 38 years at Accenture before retiring.
“I was there for 38 years until I retired last year, and it was an amazing vantage point from which to see the transformation”
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Paul Daugherty
1 episodes · 25 quoted claims
Paul Daugherty says the first production system he wrote used punch cards on a mainframe.
“the first production system I wrote was in was in punch cards on a mainframe.”
Paul Daugherty says the private equity firm TPG has about $260 billion in assets across multiple platforms.
“large PE firm, $260 billion, um, of, uh, of assets across a lot of different platforms”
Daugherty says one organization he works with saw a 30% productivity increase and a 60% increase in net promoter score after adding generative AI to customer service.
“One organization I'm working with that had, uh, 30% increase in productivity and 60% increase in net promoter score and satisfaction”
Daugherty says that even if AI were frozen today, large language models would drive five to ten years of business adoption.
“If we just froze AI right now, no more innovation, no more products, freeze it where it is right now with large language models”
Daugherty says Accenture research now puts the share of work hours that generative AI can affect above 50%, up from an earlier 40% estimate.
“We've done some additional research, and, you know, you can you can peg it above above 50% now”
Daugherty cites research that about 15% of organizations have made significant progress scaling AI.
“about 15% of organizations have made significant, you know, 1, 5 have made significant pro- some significant progress on scaling AI somewhere in the organization.”
Daugherty says the average organization spends 50% to two-thirds of its technology budget keeping legacy systems running.
“the average organization still spends, you know, 50% to 2/3 of their budget keeping lights on on legacy rather than new capability.”
Daugherty compares the AI shift to 1990s business process reengineering, popularized by Michael Hammer, which carried a similar message.
“You can't create the superhighways of tomorrow by paving the dirt paths of of yesterday.”
Daugherty says utilities on the US West Coast use AI to detect wildfires faster through satellite imagery analysis.
“they're using AI in a couple ways. One is to detect fires more quickly using AI analysis of satellite imagery”
Daugherty says Accenture used classical AI to improve its software development productivity by about 10% a year.
“we were looking at our, for example, our software development processes and looking at how do we improve the efficiency and productivity of those every year, and we were improving them about 10% a year”
Daugherty says robotic process automation was fragile and struggled to adapt to changes in underlying systems.
“RPA was we kinda had this problem of being a little fragile.”
Daugherty predicts consultants will need to bring a foundation model pre-trained on client data and remodel the business live in the first meeting.
“you need to walk in with a foundation model with pre-trained on the client's data and in the CFO's office, be remodeling their business dynamically in the first meeting.”
Daugherty says companies not on SAP's S/4 generation of software cannot access SAP's AI features.
“If you're not on SAP's S4, for example, their new, uh, generation of SAP, you don't get access to their AI.”
Daugherty cites Maersk and Walmart as examples of companies educating their entire workforce on AI.
“Great things that companies like like Maersk, like Walmart, I think, are examples of companies doing this”
Daugherty says TPG's platforms include buyout, growth capital, credit, real estate, impact and climate funds.
“It's growth they have growth capital, they have credit, they have real estate, they have, uh, impact funds, their, uh, climate fund”
Daugherty cites Chegg as a company that lost customers when people moved to low-cost generative AI models.
“Chegg, the learning company, who, when the generative AI models came out, people flocked to, you know, for free or whatever, for very low cost to generative AI models”
Daugherty uses Workday as an example of a company where AI enhances an existing software-as-a-service product.
“look at Workday as an example. You know, the new agentic they just had some new announcements”
Daugherty predicts a physical AI and robotics moment bigger than the ChatGPT moment within roughly two to five years.
“We're gonna have a a a moment probably bigger than the ChatGPT moment around physical AI and robotics and what they can do.”
Daugherty says Epic announced an expansion of its electronic medical record role into care provision, patient care automation and revenue cycle management.
“they made a broad set of announcements and a really an expansion of what you think of as EMR.”
Daugherty estimates that fewer than 20% of organizations practice responsible AI rigorously.
“Less than 20%, and that's probably a generous number, of organizations are really doing responsible AI the way I would characterize the need for it.”
Daugherty says responsible AI requires principles, processes built into engineering practice, and tools and measurement of each use case's risk.
“you need 3 things. You need principles. Everybody's got that.”
Daugherty points to Mustafa Suleyman's posts warning of the risk of attributing consciousness and agency to AI.
“Mustafa Suleiman has b- has had a series of posts that you should go look at”
Daugherty says he advocated for responsible AI for about eight years, initially with almost no one listening.
“it was preaching totally into the wilderness with 0% listening for a long time.”
Daugherty names crypto-based tokenization of assets, data and manufacturing as an underappreciated technology to watch.
“crypto as a general-purpose technology for tokenization, not just of financial assets, but of, uh, you know, other things, data, manufacturing”