How to Spot a Technology Unicorn
How do you know a unicorn is a unicorn? That’s so simple, a 7-year-old can tell you.
You know what’s harder to answer? How do you know an AI technology is a true unicorn- not just something that looks like a unicorn. Good question, huh?
Remember when IBM Watson Health was the next AI unicorn in healthcare? Using a highly developed purpose-built core technology (Watson) that was ubiquitous for winning the game show Jeopardy, Watson Health brought together several other successful healthcare technologies with the goal of making healthcare delivery faster and better. This was going to transform the industry, right?
Except, it didn’t. In fact, in January 2022, IBM divested it’s Watson Health data and analytics assets in favor of focusing on their core technology. What went wrong? How did the industry miss that this wasn’t a real unicorn horn- just something that looks like one?
Having lived through the hype, I think what went wrong is this: developers and investors were making decisions based on the technology’s potential without sufficiently considering its acceptability to the real-world users. If they had evaluated the technology from a functional framework and better understood the personas that were intended to use it, they could have made decisions that increased appeal or overcame the lack of naturally occurring alignment between the AI and the user.
The New York Times reported on the journey of Watson Health, including this:
Martin Kohn, former chief medical scientist at IBM Research, recalled recommending using Watson for narrow “credibility demonstrations,” like more accurately predicting whether an individual will have an adverse reaction to a specific drug, rather than to recommend cancer treatments.
“I was told I didn’t understand,” Dr. Kohn said.
In essence, Dr. Kohn was suggesting that Watson Health be used to augment the provider’s knowledge rather than automate the provider’s workflow. Using the Showalter Functional Framework for AI and an understanding of provider personas, it’s evident that automating technologies lacks natural appeal to physicians, while augmenting AI has natural synergy. When naturally occurring appeal is lacking, the strength of the AI, how advanced or accurate it is, or how buzzy it is in the market is not sufficient to overcome user resistance. For that, you have to create appeal through value, function, or motivation.
That’s why we created the Vitruvian Appeal Assessment. The Assessment provides a comprehensive view of the technology solution, it’s functional impact on the intended users, the user personas and what their values and motivations are, the existing or future workflows impacted by the technology, and the alignment across these variables. Whether you are considering an investment, actively developing a solution, preparing to purchase, or tasked with deploying and driving adoption, the Vitruvian Appeal Assessment gives you the ability to determine if that’s a real unicorn, or just something that looks like one. With our detailed recommendations, you are equipped with the information you need to be successful in your next step.
If you’re ready to learn more or get started, schedule an appointment or drop us an email.