Despite the hype, AI is no longer a distant dream but a tangible reality. For decades, long before generative AI, this technology has played a vital role in transforming industries and reshaping the way we do business. However, amidst the excitement and enthusiasm, moving from hype to practical implementation of AI is essential for any successful deployment of this technology within your projects.
The following is a short excerpt summarizing a segment from an episode of the AI Geeks podcast between veteran and serial tech entrepreneur (Silicon Valley, Europe, and Asia) Henry Nash, and London-based serial tech entrepreneur Tim El-Sheikh (founder and host of AI Geeks):
Understanding the real cost of AI
The debate often revolves around how to integrate AI into our environment and the tools needed to do so. While these aspects are indeed important, the long-term cost of operating and maintaining AI in production is a crucial factor that will determine the success of your AI strategy.
The real winners in this AI race will be those who can find the best balance between accuracy, reliability and cost-effectiveness while maintaining optimal openness for the flow of information.
From scientific experiments to practical applications
The fascination with large language models (LLMs) and their capabilities often leads to neglecting the real-world applications of AI. Teams should focus on how they can use AI to perform valuable work and accelerate activities by augmenting the number of people and processes. The hype cycles around AI often present it as a magic bullet that will replace all existing systems and processes, which is far from the reality.
The real challenge is to make AI practical and get a reasonable return on investment (ROI). Simply put, you need to think of AI as a journey, not a product. It’s not like building a website or an app, it’s much more complex in most scenarios and, as a result, it costs much more to deploy and manage.
The future of AI lies in ethical implementation and augmenting the skills of people, not replacing them.
The idea of replacing workers is often mentioned in the hype around AI, which is often that of “techies.” Yet, as we’ve already mentioned, the real value of AI lies in the fact that it augments human capabilities, not in replacing them.
For example, in HR, AI can answer the mundane questions HR staff are asked every day, allowing them to focus on more strategic HR management and worker well-being. This approach not only improves productivity, but also respects the value of human roles and expertise, as demonstrated by Tim’s company Nebuli.com and its enterprise generative AI ecosystem Nano for Teams for HR and other departments.
To achieve a reasonable ROI, your deployment should involve identifying and highlighting areas where AI can help and focusing your efforts on those. The real value of AI is achieved by building an ecosystem that helps people (i.e. employees, decision-makers, and end users) become better, happier, more productive, and more data-driven, through a culture of collective innovation, creativity, and agility. This is human-machine intelligence, not just machine intelligence!
Listen to the full two-hour discussion covering the above point in more detail, including a segment on quantum computing as a potential future star of the tech world. You can listen to it for free via AIGeeks.com.
Want to learn more about AI and Big Data from industry leaders? Check AI and Big Data Exhibition will take place in Amsterdam, California and London. This comprehensive event is co-hosted with other premier events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlocX, Digital Transformation WeekAnd Cybersecurity and Cloud Expo.
Check out other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars hosted by TechForge here.
