By: Joshua Finley

Dr. Matt Hasan has spent a large part of his career at the bleeding edge of innovation, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Driven by his success as an accomplished entrepreneur and former corporate executive, Hasan has experienced not only the evolution of AI as a critical tool for businesses across the spectrum of industries, but also led from the front in this journey. He shares his experiences and thoughts on the role of AI in business and how leaders can effectively embed this technology.

From Corporate Executive to AI Entrepreneur

Hasan’s career started in big companies, where he rapidly made a name for himself as an independent thinker, challenging the status quo. “I like to think of myself as an innovator,” says Hasan. “I’ve always been an innovator, and AI  is a phenomenon that has been brewing for some time and now has actually come to the forefront.” However, he found executive-level work stifling due to bureaucracy and corporate politics. He recalls, “You have to jump through so many hoops… making sure everybody’s interests are taken care of.”

That realization brought him to entrepreneurship, and after active years in corporate companies, he founded his company, aiRESULTS. “I always had an entrepreneurial bent,” Hasan says. I was called an intrapreneur because I was a troublemaker within these big companies. I’d always go and say, ‘Hey, this is not the way to do it, let’s do it another way.'” The need to innovate outside the bureaucratic confines catalyzed his decision to set up his AI-focused company.

Hasan recalls those early days: “Our company was called C-Metrix Digital Analytics. The reason I did not use the name Brand AI at that time was because AI was not known as well then. Against the market, we would have to explain what AI is.” When AI began to pick up, he rebranded to aiRESULTS, which focuses on AI solutions with the client’s desired pragmatic outcomes.

The Power and Peril of AI

Matt Hasan thinks of AI as a double-edged sword. In its right application, it delivers extraordinary benefits; misapplication can make it dangerous. “I always remind people that technology, especially AI, is like a double-edged sword. It is like fire—if you don’t use it right, it can burn. But if you use it correctly, it can do wonderful things for you,” Hasan says. That is by leveraging AI as a tool to enhance human productivity, according to Hasan, without falling into the trap of substituting human ingenuity. “AI is not going to solve everybody’s problems, and it’s not going to replace human beings—at least not in our lifetimes,” he insists. But he then quickly puts that in perspective to point out AI’s potential to free humans to more creative pursuits by automating business processes. “The difference between machines and us is our creativity, our natural tendency to come up with different kinds of things. We’re dreamers.”

Hasan pointed out one of the common mistakes businesses make when introducing AI is not being prepared enough. “Eighty to eighty-five percent of AI initiatives fail to meet their expected results,” he warns, citing research from consulting firms like Gartner and McKinsey. “The reason for that is  they do not do the proper assessment.” For Hasan, successfully implementing AI means aligning five critical elements: people, processes, technology, data, and culture. “It’s like a stool with five legs. If one of those legs is missing, then it is wobbly.”

AI’s Future in the Business World

Hasan views AI serving prominently and effectively in content generation, marketing, and healthcare progressions in the near future. “I would say the whole content generation industry—anything to do with marketing, publishing, or advertising—is going to be hit hard,” he says. Yet even as AI automates routine copywriting, Hasan says creative aspects will continue to be the domain of humans.

Hasan also remains upbeat about AI’s role in health diagnostics. “It’s going to be much more accurate because human beings make all kinds of errors. That is not going to happen with AI, as the precision is going to be much higher,” he elaborates. Automation will relieve healthcare professionals from those areas so they can shift their concentration to tasks that require more complexity, thus benefiting the patients.

At the same time, however, Hasan recognizes the challenges that also come with AI displacing jobs in the labor market. “Retail, hospitality, and any industry that is consumer-facing is going to be drastically affected,” he says, because AI will make it all even more efficient, thus either replacing jobs or creating a need for companies to spend money retraining and repurposing workers. “It’s going to create disruptions with jobs because these are also very labor-intensive industries.”

Summary

Matt Hasan’s path into AI and entrepreneurship is rife with great lessons for a business leader. His approach to AI underlines thoughtful and deliberate implementation, focusing on results while realizing the irreplaceable value of human creativity. As AI continues to shape industries, those leaders who will take Hasan’s advice—to conduct proper assessments, lead by example, and keep their eyes on results—are the ones to watch in a world with increasing automation.

To learn more about Matt Hasan’s AI expertise, connect with him on LinkedIn.

Published By: Aize Perez