What is AI, how did it get here, and what does it mean for business architecture?
Artificial intelligence moved from research curiosity to mainstream business tool with remarkable speed, and this 2022 presentation — delivered at the Inspired Business Architecture Forum — captures that inflection point. Graham McLeod and Dr Jay van Zyl trace the history of AI and machine learning from the 1940s to the early 2020s, building a working vocabulary and mapping the rapidly evolving ecosystem of models, frameworks, and platforms. The presentation examines who the major players are — Google DeepMind, Microsoft/OpenAI, Meta, Apple, and Tesla — and how the market is layering from large foundation models down to end-user applications. Crucially for practitioners, it identifies the direct implications of AI for business architecture: product and service design, business intelligence, process automation, customer experience, and the ethical and governance questions that follow. The closing message is unambiguous — business architects who ignore AI do so at their peril.
Originally presented by Graham McLeod and Dr Jay van Zyl at the Inspired Business Architecture Forum, 2022.