The bizarre interview between Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak at the UK government’s AI Safety Summit earlier this month did little to champion the idea that humans are the solution to a potential artificial intelligence (AI) problem.

It did, however, suggest that AI will put an end to the need to work – not that either Musk, the richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (on 10 November 2023), or Sunak, reputedly the UK’s wealthiest ever prime minister, have anything to worry about.

It was also suggested that AI has the potential to be the “most disruptive force in history”. For most people and organisations, this is not news. Since the unveiling of ChatGPT 12 months ago, GenAI has emerged as a game-changer. Coupled with the increased consumerisation of enterprise applications, 2023 has to go down as a seminal year.

It’s certainly a time of rapid change in software development and application features. GenAI is now the recognisable face of AI, inspiring automation and changing the way businesses think about their relationship with software, data and business processes.

For instrance, one of the UK’s major telcos recently teamed up with IT consultancy Embracent to solve a slow onboarding problem for new joiners. The result is a GenAI-driven application called Sherpa, which now manages the process, including identity verification, generating and sending offer letters, and coordinating calendars and contacts of new colleagues. What is key here is that this wasn’t a dumbing down to fit the technology – it was a re-engineered experience, with GenAI doing all the grunt work.