The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute invited Thomas Siebel‚ C3.ai CEO‚ to deliver the opening address of the CITRIS Silicon Valley Forum 2018.
Siebel joined Costas Spanos‚ the director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute‚ in a fireside chat at the Forum‚ held on March 1 in Santa Clara‚ Calif. CITRIS and the Banatao Institute operate across the University of California campuses at Berkeley‚ Davis‚ Merced‚ and Santa Cruz with a mission to shorten the pipeline between laboratory research and the development of applications‚ platforms‚ companies‚ and even new industries.
Siebel explained how the technology evolution over the last decade has created an environment ripe for powerful disruption that will impact all industries. The rise of IoT and AI‚ and the ability to manage big data sets and billions of connected devices on the pervasive and increasingly inexpensive cloud infrastructure‚ pave the way for new‚ transformative business models and insights and agility.
This digital transformation‚ which has the potential to create massive new opportunities and establish a $250T software market‚ will potentially have dire consequences for organizations that do not act quickly to adapt. Because this change is happening so fast‚ with implications across industries including retail‚ aerospace‚ healthcare‚ finance‚ manufacturing‚ energy and telecommunications‚ the mandate to adapt has the attention of CEOs worldwide. And those organizations that don’t quickly embrace digital transformation are likely to go extinct. Since 2000‚ more than 50% of the Fortune 500 have fallen off the list‚ and many more are likely to follow‚ said Siebel.
Siebel answered questions from the audience on the killer apps for AI‚ the impact on jobs and skills‚ the state of the human-machine interface‚ and industrial IoT platforms‚ as well as the implications of digital transformation on public policy and security.
