4 Questions Every Leader Should Ask About AI Transformation

_{Guest contributor: Gopi Kallayil is Google's Chief Business Strategist for AI, advising leaders on AI, innovation, and business transformation. He is also a TEDx speaker, author, and former McKinsey consultant.}

If you’re a business leader right now, you’re probably asking yourself the same question everyone else is: “How is AI going to transform my industry?” 

What might surprise you is that we are seeing similar transformations across nearly all industries. While the specific applications may differ, the high-level concepts almost always apply. That’s because AI is a cognitive amplifier. 

If you look back through history, most human inventions amplified our physical abilities. Initially, we built shelters with our hands. Then, we made primitive tools that enhanced our physical capabilities, allowing us to build more sophisticated structures. Later, we built machines that allowed one person to achieve what would have previously taken hundreds of people. 

Those types of inventions worked within the physical realm. AI is fundamentally different because it works in the realm of ideas. And when you are working in the realm of ideas, the specifics of your industry don’t really matter—because every industry has ideas. 

I’ve been lucky enough to witness firsthand how AI is impacting Fortune 500 companies, startups, and even the inner workings of Google. What I’ve discovered is that there are four main ways that AI will solve business problems, and these seem to apply regardless of which specific industry you’re in. 

In this article, I’ve chosen to look at this through the lens of home renovation, but I could have chosen to write about practically any industry. As you read, I suspect you’ll start to envision how similar changes will impact your own industry. 

Right now, most industries are fraught with friction points—many of which we don’t even consider friction points because we see them as necessary steps in the customer journey. 

For example, if you want to renovate your kitchen, there are dozens of friction points standing between your idea and reality. What color cabinets? How should they be arranged? Which ones offer the best value? Who will install them at the best price? What about flooring, backsplash, countertops, appliances, and electrical work?

We currently view these decisions as a necessary part of the process. If you want to renovate your kitchen, of course you need to make all these decisions! That’s how it works! But is that really true? 

AI has the power to remove nearly all of these friction points. Imagine having an AI agent that deeply understands your preferences, style, and finances. You could simply say, “I want to renovate my kitchen,” and receive a complete plan tailored to your exact needs, preferences, and budget. Your AI agent could make most, if not all, of those decisions for you because it knows you and has the collective knowledge of the internet. In fact, it would likely make better decisions than you! 

Every industry has friction points. People have to do research, make phone calls to book appointments, or compare prices to find the best option. AI can remove those and so many more barriers. The planning portion of a kitchen renovation alone would typically take weeks or months, but AI could condense that to minutes or hours. 

For every point of friction you remove, the customer experience improves. And when the customer experience improves, everyone wins. 

The question for business leaders: What are the friction points in your industry? What barriers prevent or delay customers from purchasing your products or services? And how can you use AI to make the process easier? 

Now, the reality is that most people who actually take on a kitchen renovation won’t need to make all the decisions themselves. They will hire a general contractor to help them navigate the process. 

A general contractor will vet the electrician, plumber, and carpenter. They’ll order materials and manage the project schedule. They’ll use their decades of knowledge to advise you on configurations, materials, and common mistakes to avoid. This service comes at a significant cost, however—often 15-20% of the total project budget. And while you could technically do all of this yourself, most people lack the time, expertise, or willpower to do so. 

AI is beginning to democratize many “luxury” services like this. The knowledge of a general contractor can now be encoded and made accessible to the average homeowner at a fraction of the cost. In fact, most current AI tools are already capable of planning entire renovations with step-by-step ordering schedules and lists of vetted contractors.

We’ve seen this happen before. The ultra-wealthy have always had drivers, then Uber and Lyft democratized private transportation. The affluent had personal financial advisors, then robo-advisors democratized financial planning. AI now has the power to democratize many additional services that were previously only available to a select few. 

The question for business leaders: What “luxury” services are currently available to your premium customers, and how could AI make those same capabilities accessible to everyone? 

Many industries require their customers to coordinate between multiple vendors to complete a task, but AI may soon change that. 

If we continue with our home renovation example, completing a kitchen renovation requires many vendors: the designer, the contractor, the materials suppliers, the various tradespeople, and so on. But each vendor operates independently. The carpenter doesn’t automatically know when the demolition will be complete. The electrician doesn’t know when the floors will be done. The onus is on the homeowner or the general contractor to make phone calls, send emails, and coordinate between all the vendors to ensure everything gets done in the right order and on schedule. 

When AI systems have the power to “talk to each other,” much of this coordination will no longer be required. The onus is no longer on the consumer, nor is it on the companies or vendors themselves; it is now on the AI systems, which can work together and handle everything seamlessly. Probably even more efficiently than humans! 

Imagine your cabinet order gets delayed by a week. Instead of scrambling to reschedule five different contractors, the AI system automatically notifies the electrician that the rough-in date has moved, alerts the plumber, and reschedules the countertop installation. It even identifies that your appliance delivery can now be moved back a week, which also means you can get the upgraded model you wanted that wasn’t available in your original timeframe! 

What previously would have required dozens of phone calls and created massive headaches just...happens. The systems orchestrate everything on your behalf, and it happens in seconds. 

This type of orchestration applies to any industry with multiple touchpoints or coordination across vendors. In healthcare, imagine your doctor’s AI system automatically coordinating with

your pharmacy, insurance company, and specialist—scheduling follow-ups, managing prescriptions, and handling authorizations without you lifting a finger. 

The question for business leaders: How can you create an orchestrated ecosystem in your industry? How can you improve the customer experience by seamlessly coordinating logistics that your customers are currently responsible for? 

Right now, most AI users rely on large language models with general knowledge. Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, for example, are already capable of planning a kitchen renovation. But are they as good as a seasoned general contractor? Probably not. 

Now imagine a company that spends years gathering knowledge from the world’s best general contractors, architects, and renovation specialists. They capture best practices, common mistakes, creative solutions, and cost-optimization strategies. They even gather location-specific information from thousands of towns and cities across the globe. Then, they encode all of this expertise into an AI system built exclusively for home renovation. 

This specialized AI would have the collective wisdom of thousands of experts from around the world, available instantly to guide your specific project. It would know local building codes, seasonal material pricing, reliable contractors in your area, and design trends that actually hold resale value versus those that quickly look dated. 

This is happening across industries right now. Companies are building specialized AI for legal work by encoding the expertise of paralegals and attorneys. Others are creating specialized AI for financial planning by capturing the knowledge of wealth advisors. Still others are developing specialized AI for medical diagnostics by learning from thousands of physicians. 

The question for business leaders: What specialized expertise exists in your industry? What do your best salespeople know? What do your top customer service reps understand about solving complex problems? That expertise can be encoded and scaled infinitely. 

Capitalizing on any of these four opportunities before your competitors will get you far. But the real opportunity lies in combining them all simultaneously.

Those who are able to use AI to remove friction and democratize access and orchestrate seamlessly and deploy specialized intelligence simultaneously will create entirely new services, products, and potentially whole industries that we can’t yet envision. 

Think about what Airbnb did by combining mobile technology, mapping, and digital payment systems to create something that didn’t exist before. The next wave of innovation will come from non-linear thinkers who can identify new opportunities that hit on all four dimensions at once. 

The best part is that both consumers and companies win in this future scenario. Consumers get better experiences, lower costs, and access to services previously out of reach. Companies that embrace these changes can operate more efficiently, serve more customers, and create entirely new value propositions. Even employees benefit through less stressful work and the ability to 

focus on higher-value activities. 

We are at a unique point in time. The companies that will thrive in this new landscape aren’t those with the most resources—they’re the ones willing to reimagine what’s possible. 

Where is your industry creating unnecessary friction that AI could eliminate?