ix EDITORS’ NOTEand Rajeev Ronanki encourage readers to look at AI “through the
lens of business capabilities rather than technologies.” Instead of
a transformative approach, the authors advise, companies should
take an incremental approach to developing and implementing AI
and focus on augmenting rather than replacing human capabilities.
They assert that AI can support three important business needs:
automating business processes, gaining insight through data anal-
ysis, and engaging with customers and employees. Their four- step
framework for integrating AI technologies, along with the real- case
examples they provide, will allow companies to explore how they
might best use cognitive technologies.
For those who work outside the technology realm, the acronyms
AI and AR can sound a bit like alphabet soup. We found value in
reading the previous piece and “Why Every Organization Needs an
Augmented Reality Strategy” together, because that can help defi ne
what those acronyms are and how they’re used. AR— technologies
that superimpose digital data and images on physical objects— has
familiar entertainment applications, such as Snapchat and Pokémon
Go. But AR is now being used in business in far more consequen-
tial ways; Michael E. Porter and James E. Heppelmann assert that
it will become the new interface between humans and machines.
They defi ne AR, describe its evolving technology and applications,
and discuss its importance. The authors provide both a primer for
Luddites and an expansive review of the opportunities AR presents,
from expected applications such as logistics and design to sur-
prising ones such as allowing HR to tailor training according to an
employee’s experience or repeated errors.
Whether we’re freelancers who have lost access to the security
and support of traditional employers or corporate employees log-
ging in from home offi ces, the way we work has changed. In “Thriv-
ing in the Gig Economy,” the organizational behavior professors
Gianpiero Petriglieri, Susan Ashford, and Amy Wrzesniewski report
on their study of freelance workers to understand what it takes to be
successful in independent work. They found that the most eff ective
independent workers “cultivate four types of connections— to place,
routines, purpose, and people — that help them endure the emotional
ups and downs of their work and gain energy and inspiration from