Tim Siemens has been working in the digital world long before the Internet.
As chief technology officer for 30 years at Online Business Systems, the company founded by Chuck Loewen in 1986, he has helped countless clients in Canada and the United States become more productive with digital tools and solutions. .
It is therefore not surprising that he has a pragmatic view of the impact that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) will have when it comes to commercial use.
JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Tim Siemens, partner and chief technical officer (CTO) of Online Business Systems, has a pragmatic view of the impact generative artificial intelligence will have on business use.
During a virtual presentation to Tech Manitoba members on Tuesday, Siemens spoke about unlocking the power of AI in the business world.
A self-confessed optimist, Siemens said it discovered the incredible power of this tool early on.
“Generative AI can be useful in a very wide variety of situations, from general to specific,” he said.
For example, as head of Online’s innovation lab, he can use AI to summarize information from large documents with complex content, extract exactly what he needs, and create new insights from that. -this.
“It’s fantastic for creating agendas and planning projects,” he said. “It’s great at conversational response. If you ask the right question, it can do a very good job of compiling and extracting key topics from large documents.
He referred to the importance of semantics in the use of AI. Asking the right questions in the right way can make a big difference in the results generated.
In an informal survey Tuesday of about 50 people who attended Siemens’ online presentation, nearly 90% said they had tried ChatGPT, the free, publicly available AI system.
AI is already proving to be a popular cultural trend.
Around 170 million people used ChatGPT in the first two months after its release.
Its global adoption is already faster than that of the smartphone and, like smartphones, its usage will certainly increase as systems become smarter and smart people capable of deploying the technology get better at it.
Siemens said Online has used it to improve the quality of chatbots and conversational tools for use in industries such as the call center context.
(Laivly, the Winnipeg AI company spun off from the massive Winnipeg-based contact center company Intouch CX (formerly 24-7 Intouch), was recently ranked as the second best startup employer in Canada in Forbes the magazine’s first-ever ranking of the best start-up employers in Canada.)
Siemens said: “Generative AI will have a significant impact on conversational applications such as chatbots and virtual assistants. It will massively penetrate these markets. This will change the nature of these kinds of interactions.
As an optimist, Siemens hopes that regulators and creators will be able to find a way to deal with malicious apps as more and more of them begin to surface.
“It’s up to brains bigger than mine to determine a solution,” he said. “I am hopeful that when it comes to deepfakes and deliberate generation of misinformation, they will be combatted. But for now, it remains a problem. »
He believes that in today’s AI age, these counterfeits can be spotted relatively easily, but in a note of caution, he said this will become increasingly difficult as they improve and become more numerous.
As for the impact of AI on human resources, Siemens’ view is also quite optimistic.
Siemens is focusing on AI productivity-enhancing features and it’s suitably impressed.
With a workforce of approximately 400 people across six locations, AI will not replace Online’s skilled workforce. Instead, he thinks it will make them all more productive.
“This means we will have the capacity to produce faster and faster,” he said. “Maybe a client has an idea that they’ve decided not to pursue because it would take too much effort. Now, all of a sudden, it becomes within our reach. »
Instead of needing fewer staff, it’s not inconceivable that this means an even greater demand for workers for a company like Online Business Systems.
“Leveraging AI’s capabilities to help get work done more productively means it will open up all kinds of avenues for use,” he said.
“I’m a little more optimistic.”
martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
Martin Cash
Journalist
Martin Cash has been writing business columns and news at the Free Press since 1989. During those years, he has written about a number of business cycles and the rise and fall (and rise) of many people’s fortunes. local businesses.
