Leveraging an Ecosystem for the Development of AI Applications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly essential for enhancing many conventional business processes and generating market opportunities. And yet, for AI to truly gain mainstream acceptance, there is a need to develop a vast array of different applications to cater to the myriad needs of the market. This, however, cannot be achieved by any AI firm in isolation. Instead, there is a need for the collectivization of a synergistic ecosystem of entities. How such an AI ecosystem is developed, however, has not been the subject of research to date. To address this gap, we conducted a case study of iFlytek, one of the most successful AI firms in China and the world. Based on our ongoing study, we developed a theoretical framework that illustrates the stages of AI ecosystem development, which can provide guidelines for other technology firms and policymakers on the orchestration and governance of market-driven AI applications