Winning in the Age of AI: Build It or Build Your Business With It
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping career paths, creating opportunities for both tech enthusiasts and business professionals. Unlike previous technological shifts, the current landscape offers two primary avenues: building the AI itself or leveraging AI to enhance existing businesses.
Recent research conducted by Aditya Challapally, Microsoft’s applied science lead and a course creator at Stanford Online, examines these dual tracks to AI success. The study highlights the increasing demand for in-depth AI knowledge, with a convergence of technical proficiency and business savvy.
The Technical Track: Rapid Solutions
For IT professionals, this means quickly delivering solutions to keep pace with the evolving business landscape. Challapally advises IT professionals to explore new tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code to stay at the forefront. He noted that many developers quickly gain a reputation as exceptional coders just by using these tools effectively. “In many organizations, I’ve seen developers quickly gain a reputation as 10x-coders simply by leveraging these tools effectively, and that advantage tends to persist even as others catch up.”
The Domain Expertise Track: Adapting AI for Business
From a business perspective, generative AI requires experts who can adapt this technology to specific requirements. Challapally emphasizes that as AI models become more common, domain-specific knowledge becomes increasingly valuable. “As AI models become more commoditized, specialized domain knowledge becomes increasingly valuable,” Challapally said. “What sets true experts apart is their deep understanding of their specific industry combined with the ability to identify where and how gen AI can be effectively applied within it.”
Challapally’s interviews with 50 business leaders revealed a high demand for this combined skillset. “Leaders rated this as even more important than traditional project management or business-related duties like bringing a compelling product vision or coordinating well,” he said. Business leaders seek individuals who blend traditional business acumen with technical literacy.
Advice for Technical Professionals
For those on the technical side, Challapally offers the following recommendations:
- Master the Art of Prompting: “Prompting is the most crucial skill for successfully using gen AI and it typically takes four to six weeks to master,” He advised. Professionals should go from simple input/output tasks to advanced techniques like multi-channel prompting and JSON formatting. The goal is to achieve consistent, repeatable outputs from LLMs and accurately assess gen AI capabilities for specific tasks.
- Stick to Fundamentals: Solid software development principles remain essential, according to Challapally, even with the availability of AI tools. “These tools make traditional software engineering principles of modular design, good systems design thinking, and understanding product requirements even more important,” he said. AI can accelerate development, but strong product or business thinking is still needed to boost careers.
- Stay Informed and Learn: Dedicate time to experiment with new models, frameworks, and tools. “Take two to four weeks and focus on foundational knowledge,” he said. “Learn the basics of AI and gen AI, get familiar with popular tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E, and develop essential prompt engineering skills. With a little effort, these LLMs can be prompted to do great things.”
- Choose Specialization Path: Decide how to specialize based on your career context. Enterprise professionals might focus on systems architecture and data flow, while independent professionals could benefit from low-code/no-code tools and basic coding with LLMs.
Advice for Business Professionals
For business professionals, Challapally provides the following advice:
- Map Your Industry’s AI Landscape: Take time to study existing gen AI applications in order to understand where to apply these applications. “Spend two to three weeks studying existing gen AI applications in your field,” he advised. “Understand successful implementations, failed attempts, and emerging opportunities.”
- Understand User Behavior: Learn how users in your industry interact with AI systems. “Invest time in understanding how your industry’s users interact with AI systems,” he said.
- Know How to Market: Learn how to make your application stand out. “As gen AI apps proliferate, one of the best things a business professional can learn to do is to learn how to make your gen AI app stand out and attract attention.”
In conclusion, success in the age of AI requires a strategic approach. For IT professionals, this means mastering the art of AI tools to rapidly deliver solutions. For business professionals, this means an industry-specific understanding of how to leverage and market these tools effectively. The convergence of these skills, technical expertise, and business acumen, will be the key to winning in the age of AI.
