“AI has a crucial role
in driving growth and
revenues and enabling
new and different
customer experiences.”
Technology investment
According to Saiz, any sector that is customer facing is accelerating
the take up of cloud, data platforms, and infrastructure enabled AI,
in order to improve customer interaction.
“The E&Y research showed that AI continues to be a big part of
a company’s spend, as they look to respond to the needs of their
customers. However, in many cases AI investment continues to lag
behind that made in cloud, data and advanced analytics and the
Internet of Things, among the companies that were surveyed.”
According to Saiz, “The future is about embedding AI in core
processes. As a consequence, companies are able to get smarter
and better align AI to their process and business needs. It’s those
companies who are investing more in AI that are gaining the most.”
These leaders look at how processes, products and services can
be improved through AI, and crucially are able to measure, monitor
and assess the benefits that they derive from AI.
Saiz points out that as companies look to invest more so they
also need to turn to developing more expansive ecosystems and
partnerships, and a growing number of organisations say that forging
innovation partnerships is a core priority going forward.
However, establishing partnerships can be a challenge in itself
with the need to create the right culture and putting in place the
agreements you need to manage and govern the relationship.
“A successful relationship depends on trust, transparency and the
equitable sharing of benefits,” explains Saiz. It will also require time
and resources.
Nurturing talent is also critical and to be successful companies
need to constantly be looking to reshape and re-skill their
workforce, in order to meet the challenges associated with
technological transformation.
“Leaders are developing new incentives to encourage their
workforces to learn new skills and in many case introducing
mandatory new training programmes,” Saiz explains. Business and
workforce strategies are increasingly connected.
Technological innovation also needs to be governed properly and
ethically, according to Saiz.
“Many of our clients are asking for a trusted framework when it
comes to AI - trust is at the heart of ethical governance.
“Ethics is becoming more important and more businesses are
looking at establishing executive level governance of emerging
technologies, but they still have a way to go. Few have an
established framework in operation.
“I believe there is a need for a private/public partnership
when it comes to ethics and ethics at scale implies institutional
involvement,” argues Saiz. “Regulators are a necessary part of the
equation, if we are to effectively leverage AI and other emerging
technologies.”
Saiz concludes by saying that she is optimistic at the way in
which AI and technology is progressing.
“We’ll see constant innovation and that will have a real impact
on people, business and technology. It’s a journey and we still have
a long way to go, but I’m an optimist.”
www.newelectronics.co.uk 9 February 2021 15
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