George F Westerman

Those at the top of the organization, senior lecturer George Westerman said, are concerned about the costs associated with AI. At the bottom, people are just wondering if they'll lose their job and how they'll adapt. He described it as decision-making inertia at the top of the organization versus adoption inertia farther down. The challenge is moving both along and bridging the gap. "Helping to create the case for change and helping people feel that they can be part of that change. That's becoming even more critical this time around," he said.

Social media platforms are saturated with career content but more advice hasn't made career decisions easier; it's made them more overwhelming. According to an article by principal research scientist George Westerman and Abbie Lundberg, editor in chief of MIT Sloan Management Review, 67% of individual contributors surveyed said they want to advance their career, but 49% said a lack of good career advice has hurt their job trajectory.

"Models need so much more data and in multiple formats," said principal research scientist George Westerman. "Where it used to be making sense of structured data, which was relatively straightforward, now it's: 'What do we do with all this unstructured data? How do we tag it? How do we organize it? How do we store it?' That's a bigger challenge."

Without a retail website as an "intermediary," shoppers can find their desired products more efficiently, since an AI algorithm finds results from across the internet and compiles them in one location, said principal research scientist George Westerman. He questioned the reliability and trustworthiness of the results and who might benefit from them. "Who's influencing the recommendations it gives you?" he said. "It's unclear how neutral AI results are because they've got to make money somehow."