Accenture tech leaders release new business book 'Radically Human'
Paul Daugherty, group chief executive for technology and chief technology officer of Accenture, and James Wilson, global managing director of thought leadership and technology research at Accenture, have co-authored “Radically Human: How New Technology is Transforming Business and Shaping Our Future.”
The book, which is a sequel to their bestseller “Human + Machine,” focuses on how leading companies are adopting a new generation of human-centric technology to drive innovation and sustainable growth. According to Daugherty and Wilson, emerging “radically human” technology systems that are modeled on human brains and behaviors can listen, see, talk, and understand in more humanlike ways than previous waves of intelligent technologies. Companies that effectively leverage human-centric technology will be able to drive growth and value in a transformed competitive environment.
According to recent research from Accenture, companies that stepped up their investments in cloud, AI, and other technologies during the pandemic are now growing their revenue at five times the rate of companies that lag on tech investments.
“In the past, people had to adapt in order to use technology. Now, radically human technology is adapting to people, accelerating their potential and changing the way we live, collaborate and work,” said Daugherty. “Our book gives leaders a new framework for innovation that encourages them to re-evaluate and flip commonly held business expectations in order to chart a new path to the future.”
The book provides business leaders with a playbook that challenges previous assumptions on the five ”IDEAS” building blocks of innovation: intelligence (more human, less artificial); data (from maximum to minimum and back again); expertise (from machine learning to machine teaching); architecture (from legacy to living systems); and strategy (we’re all tech companies now).
“In this new era of business, every company is a technology company,” added Wilson. “The future has arrived far sooner than expected, and it requires rapid proficiency in new approaches to innovation that are just beginning to emerge.”
Daugherty and Wilson also examine how large firms and startups are using the IDEAS framework to differentiate themselves across the dimensions of talent, trust, experiences, and sustainability. Leading firms are empowering their workforce to evolve from users of intelligent systems to active producers of such systems; are imbuing emerging technology with fairness, transparency, and privacy; are crafting radically human experiences that are empowering, rewarding, tuned-in, and effortless; and are creating new solutions that promote sustainability as well as improve the sustainability of technology itself.
The book, which was published by Harvard Business Review Press, is available now at all major booksellers.
