Whilst I love to read, our series of lockdowns in Victoria has given me more than ample time to add quite a few titles to this year’s reading list. I have also taken to audio books on my daily walks within my 5km zone! So we have compiled a short list on our top reads on ai at Red Marble.

It is not an exaggeration to say AI is a hot topic in Australia and globally right now and it’s the key to our business.

So let me draw your attention to a few great reads.

Here are my top 4 at the moment my other favourite top reads on AI for business leaders are:

• The AI First Company by Ash Fontana
• Atlas of AI: Power, Politics and the Planetary costs of Artificial intelligence by Kate Crawford
• Competing in the Age of AI by Karmin R Lahaina and Marco Iansit
• Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control, Stuart Russell

So let me dig into one particular gem: The AI First Company.

Ash Fontana is an internationally-renowned startup investor and venture capital partner of Zetta Capital.

Known as a trailblazer even in San Francisco, in The AI First Company he’s produced a great playbook for those providing AI services or looking to use AI to increase productivity in the workforce. It is a first to see this information all in one space, and is a critical guide for businesses building product or consulting in this space.

It’s honest. It talks about the pitfalls as well as the opportunities (of which there are many).

This is important. As we see across Australia, AI is still often at risk of misunderstanding and fear-mongering amid valid concerns around privacy, bias and noise in its implementation.

Ash Fontana has recently said while there is a long way to go for Australia to become leaders, Covid-19 has produced a kind of reverse brain drain with top talent moving back to Australia to ride out the pandemic.

For AI businesses

In his book Fontana outlines the differences between AI product and consulting businesses. People think it’s easy to move from consulting to building a SAAS product but as he clearly outlines, you need different motivators.

He says they’ve been co-existing but now they are splitting and becoming more defined in their own right.

AI First is a guide in self education of the different models these businesses are employing which will be useful for AI teams, as well as product management and technical teams.

For companies looking to introduce AI

While AI has been really exploratory, it has now become really clear the advantages that it gives organisations and leaps they can make by building it into their ways of working.

It’s not a pipe dream.

What we are seeing is how quickly those that do use AI effectively get ahead. Consumers are exposed daily to the effects of AI for example the influence on their purchasing habits of algorithms.

The challenge is that while it is essential I don’t think we should be leading with just AI anymore.

What organisations will increasingly need is engineering and product managers to embrace machine learning and AI as just part of the toolkit.

Companies will need specialists to help organisations with the deep knowledge to create experiments and accelerate their learning. While we are building talent, to go it alone in-house now will be a slow burn, what is proving more effective will be to inject clear competency for short medium term through external sources.

For everyone

The crux of this book reinforces our thinking at Red Marble. AI is no longer the bleeding edge, it has moved beyond theory. Experts can now introduce and implement AI quite easily but it is still perceived as a hard thing. It is not.

Ash Fontana’s book makes this really clear with a guide to how this can be achieved. It is essential reading for any companies in AI and all Australian business leaders.

Happy Reading