Alex Pollock has long maintained that entrepreneurship is an erratic river never running straight. Add artificial intelligence, and you have thrown highly charged currents into that flow. Sit down for coffee with him; you will find tons of scrawled napkin diagrams and energetic assertions. He sees artificial intelligence as an untidy partner rather than as a far-off overlord. He says, startups have never had such an exciting (and erratic) partner.
Let us first address the numbers. According to a Statista estimate, the worldwide AI market value for 2023 is projected to be above $240 billion. Both seasoned business mogues and startup founders are being swept up by this wave. Alex Pollock chews over the hazards and maintains an eye on opportunities. AI balances the playing field, he says. “A lone inventor can spar with Goliaths using the right idea and a decent dataset.” Talent cannot now be concentrated in Silicon Valley. AI-driven tools and platforms let a scrappy Lagos or Kraków founder travel just as quickly as someone in Palo Alto.
Pfew! Easy access does, however, have certain problems. “You almost daily have to learn new tricks; there’s information overload and constant change,” Pollock observes. Over 1,100 new artificial intelligence-powered software solutions debuted last year in a range from retail pricing to dental appointment scheduling. A founder can blink and miss the next secret sauce.
Pollock most finds exciting not just the speed of technology. It is the change in culture. Entrepreneurs prospering in 2024 are more the AI shepherds than the lone wolves, he believes. Once teams spent days answering questions, they now ask—and let artificial intelligence respond—in seconds. “Want quick consumer data, more intelligent marketing plans or on-demand product development? Artificial intelligence manages the menial tasks. Founders then spend less time caught in Excel purgatory or email horror.