A black swan is a rare, unanticipated event that surprises people and has a big impact on society, or changes the course of history.

The term was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who wrote about the concept in his book “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable”, to describe large-scale random events that are impossible to predict, yet have huge impacts.

Individual black swan occurrences are impossible to forecast, whether they are of an environmental, economic, political, or social character, but they frequently happen somewhere and have a huge impact on someone. With the increase in global business, black swans are likely to pose more dangers to your business, including negative impacts to your clients, partners, suppliers, investments, processes, employees, and shareholders.

Using novel technologies such as AI will be absolutely key for businesses to remain afloat through these troubled waters.

Companies can benefit from applying the power of AI both to who they sell to and how they sell. A starting point with AI can be looking at similar challenges experienced in the past, and how revenue forecasts dropped in those situations – for example, previous recessions.