Over the course of human history, some technologies have had a more profound impact than others. Arguably, fire was the first ‘technology’ tamed by humans, which then led to agriculture, the printing press, electricity, computing, the internet and so on. These technologies are sometimes referred to as GPTs, not the Generative Pre-trained Transformer of ChatGPT, but General Purpose Technologies. Most GPTs not only impact businesses and the economy, but they reshape societies, politics and geopolitics, and often humanity itself. Arguably, Artificial Intelligence is also a GPT which could have a similar impact. While the astonishing creative and conversational abilities of GenAI bots like ChatGPT and its ilk has made waves, I believe that the impact of AI will be far more profound. Here are seven ways that AI will reshape us:

AI is the new UI: Bill Gates talked about how each successive change in UI or User Interface brought a leap forward in human productivity and how we could harness machines. GUI or Graphical User Interface completely changed how we can leverage computing, followed by the browser, the search bar, and, finally, apps. With AI, and GenAI in particular, natural voice will become the new UI, and we will work with machines in the same collaborative, natural and human way that we work with a human coworker.

Agents are the New Platform: Gates, again, described how ‘dumb’ apps will be replaced by agents who could perform tasks on our behalf. A trave itinerary today involves interacting with several apps and websites, coordinating schedules and preferences, and finally coming out with an itinerary. In the near future, agents would know our habits and preferences, construct itineraries and book tickets and rooms on our behalf. Agentic systems are amongst the most exciting fields in AI, and proto-agents, like the GPT Store of ChatGPT, have already started appearing. I believe that the demise of the App Stores is nigh, as agents replace apps.

SaaS is the New SaaS: where software-as-a-service gets replaced by service-as-a-software. A seminal Foundation Capital paper (https://bit.ly/473ByVO ) introduced this, and to paraphrase: Today, a SaaS company like QuickBooks sells access to its tool for tax services, but customers are still responsible for using that tool to achieve the desired outcome. In the reverse SaaS business, the responsibility for achieving this outcome sits with the company selling the service, so instead of QuickBooks, you offer an AI accountant who will do your tax services—in this case, conducted by an AI accountant. The service will become an AI software. According to Foundation, this is a $4.6 trillion opportunity

English is the new Coding: Gartner says that AI is more than just a technology, it is a profound shift in how humans and machines interact. With GenAI, we can instruct and computers to build something using our own natural language, whether English or Hindi or any other. The ‘prompts’ that we write, are nothing short of proto-code, but rather than learning the machines language, the machine needs to understand ours. This could lead to a huge productivity revolution, as coding becomes democratized and, potentially, everyone becomes a ‘software engineer’.

AI will Shape the New Phone: However, AI products will come and experiments like Rabbit R1 and the AI Pin are precursors to that. However, I believe that the AI Phone will be very different from the iPhone of today: the UI will be voice rather than touch, the apps will be replaced by agents, and the Android/iOS operating system will be replaced by a Large Language Model OS. It might be a startup building this which could be the new Apple, or it could be an incumbent like Apple building this.

The CHRO is the new CIO: a rather controversial statement which will not endear me to my CIO friends. However, I believe that GenAI is a democratic technology, and it will only move the needle in a company, if every employee becomes a power user of the same. For that leaders will need to set a new culture, which will foster experimentation and curiosity around GenAI, and build AI Literacy in the company, and the responsibility of that will rest squarely with the CHRO.

The new human will incorporate AI: Yuval Harari talks about how the next evolution of Homo Sapiens would be a super human encompassing AI and biotechnology advances, a species he calls Homo Deus. Deus literally means God, hinting at our God-like future. It is a provocative concept, though Elon Must seems to be a fan of this, with his Neuralink integrating AI and machines in human brains

Thus, AI and GenAI have a potential to much beyond the ChatGPTs of the world, and become a General Purpose Technology that could shape the future of our species and our planet. Therefore, I believe, that the concept of literacy will go beyond knowing language and arithmetic to getting as familiar and proficient with AI. We will all need to become AI literate.