Inside our August Quarterly: Riding the AI tsunami

In workplaces AI can be a game-changer for boosting productivity and efficiency, lowering costs and developing new products and services. While a degree of uncertainty lingers around this transformational technology, its potential for improving lives and businesses is undeniable.

Artificial Intelligence is like electricity. Just as electricity transformed every major industry a century ago, AI is now poised to do the same. So says Andrew Ng, founder of Google Brain and former VP of Baidu.

It’s hard not to agree with Ng’s statement. The evidence is mounting. Artificial intelligence is indeed a game-changer. It’s shaping up to be one of the most significant technological developments of the 21st century.

Many experts would agree too, and countless experts have had their say about AI’s ongoing potential. And when you consider all the publicity that AI has been receiving in recent months, most noticeably around the capabilities of generative AI1 such as ChatGPT, then it’s hard to argue against it.

With everything else that’s going on in our world, it’s easy to go into denial about new technology and turn the other way. However, as Justin Flitter, founder of AI advisory NewZealand.AI reminds us, look around and you’ll see almost every industry already being impacted by AI in some way.

Think robotics and automation, computer vision, or natural language processing – there are countless ways to leverage AI technology. It’s an absolute game-changer, a massive accelerant for all businesses, and media platforms are a-buzz with stories about the technology.

Let’s start with barrier-breaking LLMs (Language Learning Models) – such as the one we’ve all seen in recent headlines, namely OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and other generative AI technology where businesses can access free or low-cost tools to accelerate content production and generative search.

“Generative Search is where you’re building a chat interface to your own company content,” explains Justin. “You’re building your own knowledge base for the conversational AI to generate results from.

“Think product and marketing material for customers, or company policies and documents for internal use. Five years ago, this could have cost tens of thousands to develop. Today there are dozens of low-cost DIY solutions you can deploy in moments.”
The technology applies across numerous sectors too. “Across agriculture we’re seeing advancements in robotics and computer vision, enabling fertiliser to be sprayed with pinpoint accuracy on weeds, not over the whole crop,” says Justin.

“Insurance companies are able to leverage geospatial mapping technology with machine learning to provide customers with property specific pricing, instead of postcode pricing,” he adds.

Spark’s domain chapter lead for data science, Dr Habib Yousufi Baluwala, agrees that the latest iteration of ChatGPT, ChaptGPT-4, is creating all the mainstream buzz for AI. “It serves as the human brain-like engine behind various technology systems, from chatbots to search engines, to fraud detection, as well as writing and reviewing software code.

“One of the biggest potentials for business is using generative AI to help streamline business processes. For example, we can review and train generative AI models and manage prompt engineering – the process of designing prompts, or input data, to train AI models for specific tasks, such as testing code or developing plausible responses for customer services,” says Dr Baluwala.   
“There is also potential for generative AI to transform the contact centre, where it can provide frontline agents with near-instant highly individualised answers to tough questions.

“This functionality maps easily to chatbots or virtual assistants and by plugging in sales data and customer histories we can pave the way to personalised recommendations.”
 

Addressing the fear factors

It’s still early days for mass AI adoption, and businesses, governments and whole societies are in catch-up mode.

However, as Justin Flitter reminds us, for every AI technology there are opportunities for safe, responsible use, and unfortunately “bad actors looking to weaponise the same tools.”

He names three main fear factors that may hold people back from embracing the technology.

The first is the risk to jobs.

While generative AI is already disestablishing roles around the globe, at the same time, new roles are being created. This redistribution of work has been happening for a while, but with AI’s rapid uptake, the impact is more apparent.

“More common is the role AI plays in augmenting our work,” explains Justin. “Jobs won’t necessarily be overtaken by AI, but by people better at using AI than you.”

He believes every business and every individual should explore and experiment with new AI tools as they become available.

“Learning the new vocabulary and building confidence with AI will empower people and companies to increase productivity, reduce costs and be more effective.”

The second risk is that of fake content. New tools make generative media production easily accessible, says Justin, and with some simple commands AI technology will generate an image of your creation. “So we must consider watermarks or other tagging systems to build a transparency layer across synthetic content to improve public safety.”

Misinformation is a huge negative too. Generative AI tools can create and scale content at hyper-speed.

“We’re now seeing personalised interactive generative media,” says Justin. “For example, you could visit a weather website and interact with an AI chatbot. Then during that conversation you’re exposed to a message about an unrelated topic – perhaps a political issue intended to influence your opinion.”

Risk three is less likely at the moment, but is one of sentient machines.

Could AI machines start to think on their own? Justin believes that would require major changes to the technology, and is therefore not an urgent risk.

“The best thing we can do right now is to lean into AI,” he says. “To want it to work for us. If we’re apathetic it could start taking control of us.”
 

Myths and misconceptions

Like anything that’s radically new, AI has quickly generated its fair share of myths and misconceptions.

Garry Green, founder of automation and digital transformation specialist Quanton, which recently partnered with AI-driven conversational business applications platform DRUID, agrees that the biggest and most topical misconception is that AI will completely replace workers.

AI can automate certain repetitive tasks and processes, but it’s also augmenting the capabilities of workers, he explains, improving their efficiency rather than replacing their jobs.

Furthermore, AI requires human oversight.

He says another misconception is that AI is just for big organisations and requires significant infrastructure investment. “However, it has become accessible to SMBs and doesn’t require massive capital investment. You can pay as you consume via cloud-based AI platforms, so every business can harness the power.”

Justin Flitter, meanwhile, explains it in more simple terms. “There are two main myths to dispel around AI. One is that AI is expensive to leverage. The other is that you need lots of data to get real benefit.

“The cost factor was super relevant three to five years ago. But today every tech company has off-the-shelf tools you can deploy and use immediately.”

Building new AI-powered tools has been made easier he says with New Zealand now having many AI Services businesses with years of experience in building solutions – such as Arcanum in Wellington, Aware Group in Hamilton and ElementX in Auckland.

“And sure, some aspects of AI require a lot of data. But new generative AI technology has eliminated the technical barrier to adoption and opened up infinitely more use cases.”

AI is not about solving all your business problems either, Garry Green warns. It needs to be considered within your business context, be goal driven, have specific use cases where it adds value, and be monitored.

“How AI learns within your business context needs to be understood. If you’re using it for a process where you get audited, you need to know how it’s trained and how it makes decisions. “Take, for example, using AI for the process of loan/mortgage approvals as a broker or insurance adviser. It’s great that it speeds up the process to get approved or declined; equally you could have that underwritten by a provider, but they need to know the criteria you’ve used or explain to the customer why it’s rejected,” Garry says.

Does he have any concerns? There are ethical considerations, such as biases, data privacy and security and societal implications, in terms of AI’s development and deployment with businesses, he says. “We’re currently seeing government initiatives, AI forums, industry and professional associations and research institutes, reviewing and discussing these.

“So at some point we could see some form of government regulation.”

Garry also warns that AI systems need to be trained – to ensure fairness so businesses are not ending up with discriminatory outcomes and adverse business reactions.

“They are not infallible. They require monitoring and as the business environment is constantly changing, so is AI. Algorithms are only as good as the data they are trained on.”

Meanwhile, Spark’s Dr Baluwala reminds us that while AI can perform many tasks with high accuracy and efficiency, it still lacks the ability to think creatively and come up with original ideas that resonate with human emotions and experiences. And it absolutely still needs oversight.

“So, we have found our use of AI is less about removing huge amounts of roles, and more about removing lower value administrative or repetitive work that frees our people up to do higher value things.”
 

Start a conversation

Despite initial misgivings, there’s no doubt that businesses of all sizes can benefit from AI.

There are many sources of information where you can learn more about artificial intelligence.

For example, the AI forum has a knowledge hub on its website that features helpful articles and videos1.

However, engaging with generative AI and other forms of artificial intelligence for your business does require some expertise. Spark Business Group, with its subsidiaries Qrious and Leaven, is one example of where you can go to better understand the technology and how it can streamline business processes and help make better decisions by analysing vast amounts of data and delivering valuable insights.

Get your people talking about AI. Find those staff who’re already curious and experimenting with AI and get them to share what they’ve learnt so far, says NewZealand.AI’s Justin Flitter. “Think about repetitive work processes and look for ways and tools to automate them, to free up your people to higher-value tasks.”

His company offers services to help businesses learn more about AI and its adoption, and perhaps even build their own AI-powered tools.

AI is projected to underpin $US15.7 trillion of global economic growth by 2030, and has the potential to increase New Zealand GDP by up to $54 billion by 2035 across 18 industry classifications.

AI offers New Zealand the opportunity to transform its economy, by building solutions that help lift productivity and enable us to focus on more creative and meaningful work. That’s how Spark’s Dr Baluwala sees the future.

“By introducing AI into business processes, organisations can analyse data faster, automate processes that used to require manpower, and make better business decisions using the power of predictive analytics,” he says.

Meanwhile, Quanton’s Garry Green believes AI is a massive accelerant for all businesses.

“Basically, if you’re not adopting and using it and your competitors are, you may not exist in the future as you won’t have the significant competitive advantage to compete with your price-point or the ability to change fast enough.

“It’s not just the technology; it’s a mindset of how you leverage the technology and the data, the business model that you’re going to have, and your operating model.

“So AI is a massive enabler for change.”

This is the Age of AI. It’s time to take a closer look, because the world will simply never be the same.  

How AI is revolutionising the HR industry

AI is revolutionising the HR industry and propelling SMEs into a new era of talent management. That’s the view of Employment Hero CEO Ben Thompson.

“By automating repetitive, tedious tasks, AI liberates HR professionals from manual processes and administrative burdens, enabling them to focus on strategic initiatives that truly impact employee engagement and make their business a great place to work,” he explains.

Through intelligent algorithms, AI can identify patterns and anomalies in huge volumes of data, helping HR teams to identify high-potential candidates at a glance, Ben says.

“Traditionally, they would have to sift through piles of resumes to find a great fit. Now, we’ve created tools that match great candidates with open roles in seconds.”

AI also helps optimise workforce planning, and create inclusive workplaces. “The fusion of AI and HR not only boosts efficiency but also fosters a culture of innovation,” says Ben, “where data-driven decision-making and human intuition intersect, shaping the future of work.”

Employment Hero is already utilising AI to streamline tedious parts of a job search, like writing job descriptions as a hiring manager, to writing cover letters and personal bios as a candidate.

“In future, we’ll use AI to match suitable candidates to promising job openings before an employer has even advertised a role on a job board,” says Ben. “We’ll be able to predict a business’s future hiring needs based on past growth, and streamline each step of the recruitment process to get the right person in the right role, faster.”

By Editor Glenn Baker