Innovation-as-a-Service: Emergent Lessons from an AI Innovation Management Project

Abstract

Many organizations face pressures to stay on the “cutting-edge,” that is, leverage emerging technologies to demonstrate currency and competitiveness in fast-changing, sociotechnical industrial environments. These challenges reside at the core of a growing array of organizations selling “innovation-as-a-service” offerings. These offerings capitalize on both clients’ ambitions and also insecurities over their ability to provide state-of-the-art products and services worthy of the label innovation. What is the work required to transform novel inventions into innovations? In this paper, we report on ethnographic fieldwork studying innovation-as-a-service activities at a large, global technology and services company. These activities focus on the integration of novel artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities in service offerings aimed to provide “innovation” to clients. Our emergent findings center on: relationing (nurturing the various relationships implicated in each engagement) and bundling (crafting compelling, yet mutable documentation for diverse audiences).