By Kate Woolley, IBM 

By now most of us have played around with generative AI, amusing ourselves with witty pet poems or challenging AI to perform tasks like spelling "lollipop" backward. But while these fun use cases of AI are deservedly having a moment, what should really be celebrated is the transformative power of generative AI for business.

Powered by robust foundation models trained on large datasets and fine-tuned for a variety of tasks, generative AI has the potential to impact entire industries and drive trillions in economic value over the next decade. I believe it will radically change how businesses operate, boosting productivity in areas ranging from human resources to customer service, sales, and software engineering.

However, we are just at the beginning. Significant barriers to adoption remain, including a need for more resources and technical expertise to overcome the skills gap and development costs associated with implementing trustworthy AI at scale. This is where a thriving partner ecosystem comes into play.

From competitors to collaborators 

To knock down the barriers to AI transformation, we as leaders must partner, collaborate and co-create. In the simplest of terms, we only win this race if we run it together. Companies that have spent decades competing must now work together. Competition can be a great motivator that drives innovation, but to accelerate AI adoption, the path forward is partnership. An ecosystem with collaboration at its core offers crucial inroads to the best research, technology, and support through education, skills, and competencies an enterprise might not otherwise have.

Extending this approach to AI, the right partnerships will result in access to trustworthy AI technology that is accurate, scalable, and adaptable, in combination with the skills and expertise needed to solve real business problems.

Building skills and bringing the best of our solutions together

With that in mind, we must all be thinking about how to best drive business value and transformation for clients. Education becomes the backbone of this approach. Partners should double down on building AI skills and capabilities so they can collaborate and scale AI adoption across industries.

In addition to offering programs that help develop and sharpen AI capabilities, vendors should also focus on delivering top-notch technology for users with a range of AI skills. This can include pre-built AI applications for business and IT users, AI-infused tools for developers and data scientists, and AI models for software developers.

With the right technology and skills, business partners will be able to co-create with their clients today and help them envision what they can build tomorrow. This collaborative approach will touch all corners of the ecosystem — from hyperscalers, infrastructure, and technology partners to consulting firms and systems integrators — all of which play a critical role in driving modernization.

Act today, plan for tomorrow

Historically, seismic shifts in technology have dramatically altered the business landscape, enhancing the tools businesses rely on to enable operations, streamline processes, and increase productivity. The emergence of generative AI is one of those moments.

CEOs feel an urgency to implement AI into workflows. That's why a network of strong partners with the right technology and supported by a breadth of skills is important. To grow a business, we must not only provide trusted, empowering, and targeted solutions to our existing partners but also identify future partners that will add value and vision tomorrow. 

We all want to succeed, and only together can we take full advantage of the opportunities that generative AI presents. 

This post was created by IBM with Insider Studios.