By December 2018, Evie the digital personal assistant (PA) had gained quite a following from prominent clients such as Unilever and Airbus. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), Evie was so good that clients believed ‘she’ was human, expecting to greet ‘her’ in the flesh at meetings.
Jin Hian Lee, Evie.ai’s co-founder, understood that gaining such high praise from clients was not enough. More needed to be done to jumpstart the fledgling start-up’s growth to the next level. But where should his focus be? There were signs that Evie could perhaps benefit from specialising in specific domains or be bolder and venture beyond the shores of Singapore, where the start-up was based since it began in 2014. How should Lee chart the ‘career path’ of Evie? What should he do?
Unbeknownst to him, Lee would face a similar dilemma in 2020 when the global COVID-19 pandemic plagued the world. How could he cope with the challenges awaiting Evie.ai?
This case is suitable for undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive education courses on entrepreneurship, strategy, and innovation. It can also be considered for topics related to digital transformation, automation, and issues concerning the impact of technological innovation on work. Students would be able to 1) apply concepts associated with entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and evaluation, e.g., bricolage, effectuation, and ‘bird in hand’; 2) understand the resource-based view on competitive advantage, specifically the role of AI in value creation; 3) identify different types of innovation (e.g., continuous versus discontinuous innovation; 4) apply the Blue Ocean Strategy framework.
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