Generative AI Helps Consumer Products A Lot, Telecom Services Not So Much

No doubt, we are going to see a cascade of articles and recommendations about why it is imperative that connectivity service providers apply artificial intelligence to their businesses, perhaps starting with the customer service functions, as might be true for many industries.

On the other hand, it seems highly unlikely that the benefits of AI will accrue evenly across industries, as that has not tended to be the case for past information technologies, either. 

Industry	Generative AI Impact	Rationale
Consumer Products (Retail, Fashion)	High	Generative AI can personalize product recommendations, design new products, and optimize marketing campaigns, leading to increased sales and customer satisfaction.
Healthcare	High	Generative AI can assist in drug discovery, personalize treatment plans, analyze medical images for faster diagnoses, and even create new medical devices.
Finance	High	Generative AI can generate personalized investment advice, analyze financial markets for better risk assessment, and even automate fraud detection, improving overall efficiency and security.
Manufacturing	Moderate-High	Generative AI can optimize product design and manufacturing processes, reduce waste, and even personalize products for individual customers.
Media & Entertainment	Moderate	Generative AI can personalize content recommendations, create new forms of entertainment like AI-generated music or videos, and automate content creation tasks.
Education	Moderate	Generative AI can personalize learning experiences for students, create interactive learning materials, and even automate grading tasks.
Transportation	Moderate	Generative AI can optimize traffic flow, improve route planning for self-driving vehicles, and personalize transportation options for users.
Connectivity Services (ISPs, Telecom)	Moderate-Low	AI's impact might be limited in core network functions. However, it can benefit customer service, marketing, and potentially network security.

Some industries are likely to benefit more. So AI impact might be higher for industries including financial services, for example, as has been the case in the past. Consider generative AI, which McKinsey consultants believe will drive the most value in software engineering, customer operations. 

On the other hand, generative AI impact might be least for human resources, strategy, pricing, legal and finance operations, for example. 

source: McKinsey

Many would guess that healthcare will be a bigger beneficiary from AI than has traditionally been the case for information technology investments, based on diagnostics for patient care and discovery of new drug and other care therapies. 

But even that position is contested at the moment. 

According to job site Indeed, generative AI, for example, is going to supplant more human activity in software development than in driving; more replacement in information technology help desks and less for beauty or wellness jobs. 

source: Indeed

As with so many other metrics, it appears connectivity services and data centers are somewhere in the middle of industries where it comes to the degree of process automation and improvement.

The issue is how that impact will be primarily felt, though. If the internet largely reduced marginal costs and therefore enabled global platforms to emerge, what will AI bring?

Two broadly-different drivers of outcomes might happen: AI reshapes processes in roughly the same way the internet did, or AI reshapes processes in a new way. 

In other words, if the internet primarily recase marginal cost, AI might work the same way. If AI automates processes, it could likewise lower marginal cost of any operation. 

On the other hand, AI, by enabling massive personalization and customization of products and experiences; allowing faster innovation based on better research and development processes; might drive change primarily by allowing new products to be created and discovered. 

The primary change driver would be as a value multiplier more than a marginal-cost reduction mechanism.