Harvard Business Review: 69% of Early AI Adopters Already See Tangible Business Value
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The world has seen plenty of change over the past two years, yet one thing has stayed the same since 30th November, 2022, and that is the overwhelming curiosity surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) from the day OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Those who have written AI off in the early days may now be in regret, as a survey conducted by Harvard Business Review revealed that 69% of early AI adopters already see tangible business value and are reaping the benefits.
With the release of DeepSeek-R1, a Chinese open-source large language model (LLM) and a close rival of ChatGPT, Hong Kong enterprises have no doubt gained better access to generative AI (GenAI) tools. However, access to technology may not always be sufficient to bridge the divide, which is why forerunners like Cathay and Goodnotes serve as excellent use case scenarios to demonstrate how different businesses can profit from AI.
From Automation to Sustainability: Realising the Power of Innovation
Optimising operations at the airline’s nerve centre, the previously manual decision process would now factor in diverse operational factors before determining which flights to delay and how to change the aircraft rotation. Not only does Cathay see improvements in on-time performance with AI’s recommendations, there is also the added benefit of fuel reduction, thus driving progress in the company’s sustainability goals.
From Retention to Engagement: Reinventing the Product Journey
It may sound easy for established industry players to afford to explore AI, but the same can apply for startups looking to scale. Goodnotes, a London-based note-taking app, introduced customer-oriented AI features that were able to solve real user problems, successfully building a loyal base of 25 million active users. Moving beyond spell-checks and automatic word completion, the launch of Ask Goodnotes allowed users to interact more dynamically with their notes, handling open-ended prompts for question and answer, summarisation, translation, and quiz generation.
Essentially providing students with an all-round study partner, the app saw a positive correlation between usage of AI features and subscription renewal rates, successfully balancing cost and revenue despite running large language models. “The user feedback has been very positive. We see that customers are actually building a habit around using [GenAI] features,” stated Steven Chan, Founder and CEO at Goodnotes. In fact, 30% of HBR respondents even indicated a reduction in operational costs as one of AI’s main benefits.
From Fear to Faith: Experimenting without Comprise
One other aspect that has remained constant is the general concern around AI. With the current global situation changing by the minute, people are worried about losing their jobs to bots and machines. Cathay’s answer was to involve employees across all functions and teams in charting the direction of adoption, even training the cabin crew to generate automated public announcements at boarding gates using a text-to-speech AI service.
Aldric Chau,General Manager Digital at Cathay Pacific remarked, “What I’d recommend to those early on in their GenAI journeys is to really involve the whole organisation – don’t just start with one department.” In terms of eradicating fear surrounding the technology, Chau reminds employees that AI isn’t perfect, managing expectations while also highlighting the importance of keeping a human in the loop to guide, refine, and monitor results. By upskilling the workforce, Cathay in turn addresses the primary obstacle in its GenAI journey, along with 42% of early adopters who face a shortage of necessary talent.
GenAI is ultimately moulded by the unique regulations, policies, and geopolitical factors of the region in which it operates, which explains why 33% of early adopters are challenged by data security or cybersecurity problems. There is no better way to navigate complexities and risks associated with AI than transparency, which is why Goodnotes communicates with users to share what is being handled on the device and processed in the back end.
However, both companies have high hopes for the future and do not wish to end their AI journey just yet. Cathay plans for Vera to act as an agent and personal concierge for travelers, while internal bots are expected to act as virtual assistants for employees. Meanwhile at Goodnotes, Chan sees its software product going beyond mere information processing, taking the next step in enhancing productivity by becoming a bigger part of the idea-generation and decision-making steps in workflows.
