A lot has happened since AI Appreciation Day was first celebrated on 16 July in 2021. Businesses are definitely introducing AI for their businesses this year, whether it is with a proof of concept, or something more ambitious. "This AI Appreciation Day, we must recognise and emphasise the practical applications of this technology," said Kumar Mitra, MD and Regional GM, CAP & ANZ, Lenovo ISG.
"ASEAN+ businesses have not shied away from embracing AI solutions to gain a competitive edge. According to a recent study by Lenovo, 94% of ASEAN+ CIOs have expressed certainty that AI will create a competitive advantage, with 51% considering it to be a game changer for their organisations."
"We observe three key changes AI introduces to enterprise software: workflow automation, copilot assistance, and data analytics for decision-making," noted Sandie Overtveld, SVP of Freshworks APAC & MEA.
"As businesses rapidly adopt AI, its applications have been expanding in scope and impact. Smarter AI can now understand customer sentiments, handle simple queries, and free up agents. For more nuanced or complex inquiries, AI can triage these accurately in real-time to the right agents."
"Organisations have to recognise that business process automation (BPA) and AI together offer unmatched productivity gains and returns on investments (ROI). BPA lays the groundwork with predefined workflows, while AI adds intelligence and adaptability," said Suresh Sambandam, CEO, Kissflow.
According to Sambandam, Kissflow prioritises citizen development to deliver user-friendly, scalable solutions. "No-code platforms simplify AI integration into applications, unlocking higher efficiency and insights," he said.
"AI has undergone a remarkable evolution since its early days of lofty expectations in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was envisioned to replicate human thought. However, as researchers encountered the complexities of achieving human-like intelligence, initial enthusiasm waned, giving way to a more measured perspective on AI's capabilities.
"Today, AI pervades every aspect of modern life, from ubiquitous voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to transformative applications in healthcare, finance, and beyond. While AI enhances efficiency and innovation, it also raises significant concerns about privacy, job displacement, and fairness, prompting a critical focus on responsible and transparent AI development," said Abhishek Kumar Singh, Head of Security Engineering, Singapore, Check Point Software Technologies.
Comments for AI Appreciation Day 2024 touch on a wide range of topics, many on what will optimise AI implementations for businesses. Several industry observers also singled out Singapore as being a leader in AI adoption.
Strategic planning needed
Dr Vishnu Nanduri, Director, Data & AI for Kyndryl, said that AI can be a valuable transformation catalyst for businesses, and advised leaders to consider how they can maximise their investments. "We are still at the very beginning of the generative AI trajectory and many business leaders are asking how they can implement the technology and - more importantly - where and how do they start.
"It is prudent to be strategic about this and maximise the impact of their investments, else companies risk burning through innovation budgets without experiencing any substantive benefits. Generative AI is not the panacea for all challenges within a company. Business leaders need to understand what the technology can and cannot do, and then collaborate with their data and AI divisions to implement it, keeping in mind that having a solid data foundation is imperative for continued success," Dr Nanduri advised.
Eric Helmer, SVP & CTO, Rimini Street advised caution in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) context: “AI has catapulted IT from the back office to the front office and on the leading edge of revenue generation, competitive advantage, and corporate growth. With growing talent and skill shortages and greater complexity of IT systems, having the right allocation of people, time and money is critical if organisations want to invest in these important AI initiatives.
"Though software vendors tout AI offerings, often if you move to their latest versions available exclusively in the cloud – at a significant cost and disruption to the business, IT and finance executives must take the first step in assessing the true ROI of such an endeavour. By locking your IT budget and roadmap in with the vendor’s promise, you may only innovate at the speed of the big ERP vendor, which may be too slow to stay relevant and ahead of the game.
"At Rimini Street, we recommend organisations stay flexible and in charge by starting with their AI
goals, then seeing where specific ERP data fits into that as opposed to starting with an ERP upgrade
and retrofitting to try and meet your AI needs. We also place greater emphasis on investing in
projects to ensure our clients’ ERP data is clean and accurate, as AI is only as successful as the data it
pulls from. Remember, 'garbage in, garbage out'. ”
Building an intelligent data foundation
"As business needs expand and the opportunities for AI grow, hybrid smarter infrastructure becomes important to effectively manage AI complexities. This ensures generation and processing of data in real-time, helping businesses deliver superior customer experience," said Mitra from Lenovo.
Customer experience was also figured in Freshworks' comments. "Riding on this AI wave, enterprises need to adopt AI-powered solutions to level up their customer and employee experiences, boosting efficiency and engagement,” said Overtveld, who suggested that tools like Freshworks’ Freddy AI can help customer experience professionals effectively address customer problems and enhance satisfaction through personalisation.
Greg Statton, Office of the CTO, Data & AI, Cohesity said: "AI encourages us to evolve, rethink 'that’s the way it’s been done' processes, and inspire new entrants to the field. We’re living in a time where decades of transformation are becoming a reality in weeks, and weeks of transformation are defining decades to come.
"While we appreciate AI’s potential, we must recognise the associated risks. AI relies on data, and it’s paramount to use it for growth and innovation without exposing new vulnerabilities or compromising data security.”
Henry Kho, Area VP and GM for Greater China, ASEAN and South Korea at NetApp, noted that Singapore is one of the leading AI economies in NetApp’s 2024 Cloud Complexity Report, with AI projects up and running or in pilots at 57% of technology decision-making respondents in the country.
"As organisations gear up for the AI revolution, it is important that they lay the groundwork necessary for AI success," he said. "Data underpins all AI processes. In other words, AI success is very much dependent on your data infrastructure. The recent Scaling AI Initiatives Responsibly survey by NetApp and IDC identified the top reasons for AI initiatives failing:
- Inability to access data
- Insufficient data to train models
- Privacy, compliance, and data governance concerns or requirements
- Data engineering complexity
- Untrustworthy or poor-quality data sources
"AI transformation is often hindered by the inability to access scattered data in siloed storage infrastructure — so it’s harder for AI engineers to train and develop models. Organisations should adopt an intelligent data infrastructure that supports the preparation, movement, analysis and use of data across on-premise and hybrid cloud environments.
"Such seamless integration makes data sources for machine learning and AI readily available, regardless of their location. AI also isn’t just about algorithms and models; it’s about trust, transparency, and the ethical use of data. Responsible AI is a method for creating AI algorithms that minimise sources of risk and bias throughout the AI lifecycle. To establish effective data governance and strong data practices, companies should consider four key principles: fairness (ensuring unbiased results), interpretability (ensuring data traceability), privacy (maintaining data confidentiality), and security.
"Apart from the above, organisations must heighten their cyber-resilience capabilities, including having appropriate AI/ML-embedded storage technologies to combat ever-evolving cyberthreats like ransomware."
David Irecki, CTO for APJ, Boomi, touched on the need for application programming interfaces (APIs) for AI and automation. "AI has advanced significantly, making the integration of intelligent agents into workflows more achievable as technology progresses. We see that AI will augment many of today’s business processes, which could include advanced chatbots for customer service or AI-driven personalised recommendations in retail. Within an AI-centric world, the evolving role of developers and IT professionals would mean for AI to act as a tool to augment, and not replace human roles, but complement human expertise," he said.
"Businesses need to understand that any digital transformation initiative seeking to leverage AI and automation must have a robust API management foundation. APIs, the connective tissue for data and transactions, are vital for communication between most applications and microservices. They’re essential for moving data into and out of AI large language models (LLMs), AI agents, and other AI applications... This paves the way for enterprises to gain greater visibility into and control over their API investments, and accelerate progress on AI, digital transformation, and other business-critical IT investments."
Boomi contributes to providing such a core foundation with its API gateway and API control plane, Irecki said.
Demand for relevant skills
Raghav Gupta, MD for India & Asia-Pacific at Coursera, noted that there are concerns about job security and how businesses should adapt to AI. "An IFC report estimates that gen AI and automation could drive US$1 T in productivity gains in Asia by 2027 with the right skills development strategies. However, two-thirds of jobs are at risk of some degree of automation. White-collar workers, in particular, need to demonstrate their gen AI skills to secure employment and advance their careers. On AI Appreciation Day, we are reminded of our collective responsibility to harness gen AI's potential, transforming it into an opportunity for everyone," he said.
"As businesses integrate AI across various functions, there is a growing need for the workforce to reskill and continually update their knowledge of this emerging technology. Online learning can facilitate rapid and scalable reskilling and upskilling. On Coursera, we’ve seen a phenomenal rise in enrollments in gen AI across APAC, and Singapore has been a standout performer. In 2023, we noted that every two minutes, someone in APAC was enrolling in a gen AI course on Coursera," Gupta shared.
"Fast forward to 2024, we now have two enrollments every minute in the region. In Singapore alone, over 32,000 enrollments have been recorded across 250+ gen AI courses and projects, marking an impressive 815% year-over-year increase. This surge places Singapore among the top 10 countries globally, leading the charge in Southeast Asia."
According to Gupta, the top courses for gen AI at Coursera include:
- Generative AI with Large Language Models (DeepLearning.AI; AWS)
- Generative AI for Everyone (DeepLearning.AI)
- Introduction to Generative AI (Google Cloud) - Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT (Vanderbilt University)
- Google AI Essentials (Google) Gupta also commented that gen AI skilling in Singapore shows a generational trend.
"Millennials (65%) lead the reskilling race, followed by Gen Xers at 24%, and Gen Z at 8%. Three percent of Boomers (60+) are also enrolled in gen AI courses. This reflects a proactive approach from middle to senior management, with notable enrollments from managerial leaders (29%), senior individual contributors (27%), and directors (15%). Executive management and interns also participate at 7% each," he said.
"The remarkable uptake of gen AI courses in Singapore highlights a nationwide commitment to embracing the future of work. This trend, driven by both individual and organisational efforts, underscores Singapore's leadership in the AI revolution and its readiness to harness the transformative power of AI technology."
Boris Cipot, Senior Security Engineer, Synopsys Software Integrity Group said that there are misconceptions about AI. "Usually, we are swayed by what we see or hear, even if it might be a generalised information about a complex theme. One of those themes is job security. AI can certainly automate many things. It can help us with decisions as it can calculate millions of parameters and bring a decision faster than a human would be able to. The worry is that AI will take over human jobs. As AI become more embedded into our daily lives, our employment will be impacted; however, not in the sense that AI will replace us," he said.
"In some cases, AI taking over human roles could be a positive results – for instance, dangerous jobs involving toxic environments or problematic terrain where machines with AI would be safer than a risking the health and safety of a human worker. However, in other ways, AI will be a helpful technology that should make our jobs easier to fulfill with a human-like general intelligence. Today’s AI maturity is impressive and based on how it has evolved, its capabilities seem endless.
"However, today’s AI is still computer software that executes its general purpose. Be it video and audio creation and editing, text creation or even healthcare applications – they are processing parameters and executing actions faster than a human would be able to. This doesn’t mean that they can decide by themselves entirely. For this, AI would need a sense of motivation, a sense of self awareness and this is still not something it's capable of. Not yet, at least."
Implications for data-rich verticals
Vincent Tang, VP, Asia, Epicor noted that the manufacturing sector generates vast amounts of information. "AI is the answer to today’s supply chain challenges, and Epicor is prepared for both the artificial age and the future of supply chain management by redefining how humans and machines communicate.
"We ensure that machines work with you, not against you while placing workers as the core of the
intelligence ecosystem. The synergy between AI and ERP will do more than improve existing
workflow processes; businesses that leverage the technology will unlock the new vision of industrial
operations,” he said.
A new ball game for security
“Many industries have benefited from AI, particularly IT security. AI has been a positive influence on driving productivity, making it possible for companies to stop attackers in their tracks more quickly, be more proactive in preventing attacks, and provide more seamless user experiences. However, advancements in AI have also encouraged threat actors to become more sophisticated, endangering security," noted ManageEngine's Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of Research.
"The rule-based approach alone no longer works. AI-enhanced security solutions need to adapt on the fly by interpreting behaviours and assessing the risk level of each incident to decide on appropriate actions, such as logging a report and raising an alert to block access immediately.
"Celebrating a day dedicated to AI ought to remind us that this technology has great potential and that we should embrace it by looking for ways to implement it responsibly while still benefitting from it.”
“AI has opened doors for nearly every industry, including cybersecurity, as it has allowed organisations to become more proactive against threats, create more frictionless user experiences, and stop attackers in their tracks faster than ever before. Yet, just as AI has been a force for good, it’s also been a catalyst for threat actors to increase their sophistication, putting identity under attack. This kind of activity is on the rise, with 41% of IT leaders expecting cybercriminals’ use of AI to significantly increase identity threats over the next year," said Patrick Harding, Chief Product Architect, Ping Identity.
"That said, today should serve as a reminder that while AI has created challenges for security, there is also a great opportunity to embrace the emerging technology. More specifically, organisations can (and should) use AI to combat AI-related threats and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals, to protect their customers and employees alike.”
"To be ready to tackle today’s threats and resilient against future ones, ExtraHop continues to build upon its proprietary AI and machine learning capabilities to help organisations detect, identify, and mitigate security threats and network issues with speed and accuracy," said Daniel Chu, VP of Systems Engineering, APJ, ExtraHop.
"A rapidly growing threat landscape and overwhelming alert overload is impacting security operations
center (SOC) analysts, making them increasingly overworked and under-resourced. ExtraHop recently made new AI advancements to directly address these issues, better automating SOC workflows and relieving analyst fatigue.
"One recent advancement is a new AI Search Assistant that acts as an SOC analysts’ threat hunting companion, enabling teams to gain a better understanding of their attack surface through natural language queries. By utilising the power of generative AI in the search assistant, new and already-established analysts can identify risks with greater speed and ease.
"As AI continues to rapidly advance, organisations must continue updating their offerings to provide
customers with powerful capabilities that enable them to work smarter.”
Anthony Spiteri, Regional CTO APJ at Veeam, also shared how the company is leveraging AI. H esaid Veeam is using AI "in powerful ways to predict and mitigate risks, optimise operations, and enhance data protection strategies".
"This commitment is evident in our latest advancements, particularly in the core platform, our partnership with Microsoft and the technology preview of our advanced AI Assistant," Spiteri said.
"We introduced a cutting-edge malware detection engine, showcasing how AI can significantly enhance backup and recovery processes. By analysing vast amounts of data, our AI-driven engine identifies patterns and anomalies, enabling proactive threat detection and response. This real-time monitoring and anomaly detection ensure that our customers' data remains secure and recoverable, fortifying their security posture.
"Our partnership with Microsoft takes this a step further, providing insights from Microsoft 365 (M365) backup data. This integration allows us to offer more efficient and effective data management solutions, ensuring our customers can confidently navigate the complexities of the digital landscape."
Freshworks' Overtveld pointed out that the AI play comes with issues. “Across the globe, concerns around privacy, hallucination and data security are significant. To fully tap into AI benefits, we all have to prioritise data protection and ethical AI regulations to foster trust and large-scale adoption. Inherently, cloud providers have systems that are designed with a security-tuned foundation that is better at data security with AI only further enhancing the commitment," he said.
Working together
Alex Teo, VP & MD of Southeast Asia, Siemens Digital Industries Software, talked about collaboration and ecosystems. "We at Siemens envision a future where the industrial metaverse becomes a dynamic, immersive reality. In this world, artificial intelligence and humans collaborate seamlessly to tackle complex challenges, driving innovation and sustainability," he said.
"Our partnerships with industry leaders like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft underscore our dedication to creating an ecosystem where AI can thrive. Together, we're paving the way for a future where technology and humanity work hand-in-hand to create a smarter, more connected world."
"Businesses must develop and evolve the entire industrial ecosystem to
ensure AI is accessible across all development and application stages.
Everyone should benefit from these advancements in a more sustainable
future created through smarter AI. Lenovo is at the forefront of this
exciting journey as it upholds its commitment to its vision of AI for All – making AI accessible and inclusive to drive intelligent transformation," added Mitra.
Aspirations and predictions for AI
"In the next six to 12 months, we anticipate significant growth in generative AI implementation and research across the APAC region and the world. I believe that we will begin exiting the ‘proof of concept’ stage in a company’s transformation journey and we will witness true adoption of the technology driving real impact," said Dr Nanduri.
"The only thing we can be sure of is that AI technology will further evolve. Today’s AI is like a teenager, full of energy but lacking experience. This makes the usage of AI today rather unpredictable as we do not know how it could be misused. In five years, AI usage will be more mature and much more powerful—in industries such as healthcare, providing more thorough treatment to patients, or in education, to make educational value more accessible across the globe. What could be a major leap is the advancement of the quantum technology which would make processing power massive, and this can change the AI we have today in a perspective we cannot yet imagine completely," said Cipot.
"AI Appreciation Day reminds us that AI should not be seen just as a tool but as a transformative force that can enhance human potential and drive societal progress. We must focus on harnessing AI to unlock new possibilities, foster innovation, and address the critical challenges of our time," Teo concluded.
Bisham Kishnani, Head of Security Engineering, APAC & Japan, Check Point Software Technologies, had the last word. "Remember the early days of Nokia and Ericsson phones with a couple of games and basic texting? Look at how smartphones have become an essential part of our lives. AI will elevate technology to an unimaginable level," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment