IT leaders discuss the role of AI during pandemic

Companies looking to use AI effectively know those systems are only as good as the data they are based on. Tricia Wang, co-founder of Sudden Compass, said the pandemic has made a lot of data that is related to consumer behavior irrelevant.

“We are all going through a spatial collapse,” Wang said. She noted that in the pre-pandemic era people spent most of their time in three different locations: home, work and play.

Tricia Wang

“During the pandemic our mental models for all three have come together on top of each and collapsed,” she said. “Our entire social concept of how we experience space has collapsed.”

For example, this means a clothing company needs to have a very different understanding of what their customers want to wear.

“All that data you thought you understood about your customer is out. People are spending more money on tops and sweats,” Wang said during the conference.

As we eventually enter a post-pandemic phase, Wang said she expects entirely new trends in consumer behavior and preferences will emerge. “Companies that can collect quantitative data will have a competitive advantage and win,” she said.