“Get real!” is what you say to someone when they get so carried away with an idea that they forget the practicalities.

You might think that the business world, with its hard-nosed executives, practical managers, and demanding shareholders, is already as real as it gets. However, in many ways it’s just as susceptible to hype as any other group. Take the Metaverse, for example – it may well be transformational eventually, but right now, there’s the very practical issue that most people don’t want to spend large amounts of time isolated from the real world. Artificial Intelligence (AI), too, while it has massive potential, has some practical issues around data security, privacy, and accuracy that should not be underestimated.

Which brings us to our lead article for this Second Semester 2023 edition of Prism. For businesses, one of the most obvious applications of AI is knowledge management. But relying on third-party open-access tools such as ChatGPT has some big drawbacks for a company handling confidential and sensitive data. Based on some in-house pilots, we demonstrate the potential and value of in-house customized AI bots. Could this be the real future of AI for business?

And on the Metaverse, too, while the initial hype wave has well and truly passed, we strongly suggest businesses don’t write it off just yet. In our second piece, we look at how the Industrial Metaverse, through developing further from existing digital twin technology, can offer practical benefits to companies without the need for fully virtual environments.

Digital twins, however, are not much use without connectivity to the real world. Connectivity is an essential aspect of any digitalization strategy, but is often treated by companies as mainly a tactical or technical issue. But as scale and complexity increase, this approach is becoming increasingly inadequate. Our third article explores how to take a more strategic approach to the connectivity challenge.

Next, we turn to the energy transition and the huge challenges of achieving stable baseload power from renewable energy sources. Although many countries dismissed nuclear power following Chernobyl and Fukushima, today there’s growing interest around the world in small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) as a potential contributor to the future energy mix. If we are really going to “get real” about achieving full energy transition, could SMRs be part of the solution? We explore the pros and cons.

Digital infrastructure is as fundamental in the 21st century as railways, roads, and bridges were in the 19th and 20th centuries, and our next two articles focus on this. First, we share some fascinating results from recent work comparing how well national governments around the world have performed in digitalizing their economies. And second, we zero in on the challenge of providing public digital platforms and solutions that are accessible to all for basic services such as payments, health, and identity. Recently, India has achieved impressive results with its Digital Public Goods platform, empowering countries and reducing dependence on the global tech giants. We explain how it was done and what it means for both government and business.

A recent phenomenon fueled by digitalization is the rise of digital-first “challenger brands,” start-ups that are threatening big established consumer brands by building significant scale in a matter of months rather than decades. In our next article, we look at how they do this and what lessons can be learned for others.

And finally, we bring you an updated perspective on the growing momentum behind hydrogen as countries continue to struggle with the energy transition. There are great opportunities, but still many challenges – what does it mean for end users and players in the energy value chain? To provide his unique perspective on this, we are delighted to bring you an exclusive interview with Pascal De Buck, the Chief Executive Officer of Fluxys, one of the leading energy infrastructure companies in Europe, which is focusing strongly on facilitating and accelerating the energy transition through hydrogen as well as renewables.

We hope you enjoy this semester’s packed issue, and as always, we look forward to hearing your feedback!

Rick Eagar
Chief Editor, Prism
Arthur D. Little