Advice on the Rise of GenAi and Natural-Language Interfaces

The rapid rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has delivered the power of AI to everyone from school children to grandparents. Indeed ChatGPT, offering simple natural-language interface, attracted 100 million users in less than two months after its launch.

This democratisation of AI – via GenAI – was made possible by powerful, fast infrastructures – including compute, network, and dense, fast, flash storage – becoming more widely available. Now that people have been exposed to tools like Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, using a natural language interface will become expected for coding, customer support, and other professional pursuits.

A lack of understanding remains

Unfortunately, many organisations are still not taking the time to understand what they want to get out of GenAI. That ultimately leads many companies either proceeding with caution, or not proceeding at all.

Despite GenAI’s promising trajectory, a recent Harvard Business Review article correctly notes that “’AI suffers from an unrelenting, incurable case of vagueness – it is a catch-all term of art that does not consistently refer to any particular method or value proposition.”

Lack of understanding about GenAI specifically has led this promising technology to get overhyped, creating distractions and wasting effort at businesses. Everest Group reports that while 2023 saw more than 1,200 GenAI proof of concept (PoC) efforts, signalling strong enterprise engagement in experimenting, less than 18% of PoCs are reaching production stage.

However, with a realistic view of what GenAI can do and what it requires, organisations can move forward with confidence and truly position their companies for business transformation.

GenAI driving real results

Organisations can use GenAI to drive business transformation through automation. From automobile manufacturing to financial services and retail, any sector with repetitive tasks can benefit from more automation. And GenAI-based automation can help these businesses realise cost savings.

GenAI also can enable product differentiationto drive business revenues. If you can become more proactive than reactive by using GenAI’s infinite knowledge and capacity to understand and act quickly on events and trends, you can fix problems and deliver better solutions more quickly.

Being selective in the use of GenAI

WIRED magazine reports “AI startups are expensive companies to set up and operate because of their need for computing power” and adds that “buzzy generative AI products are now narrowing their offerings to try to make them more useful to business clients.” Meanwhile, Gartner predicts that by 2025, growth in 90% of enterprise deployments of GenAI will slow as costs exceed value.

So, it’s important to start by defining the problem you are trying to solve, and be specific about what outcomes you expect from GenAI efforts. Be selective in using GenAI, because it requires a lot of compute and scaled out infrastructure that can handle large data sets, so it can get expensive quickly. Only use GenAI to solve problems that couldn’t otherwise be solved.

Understand that the outcomes you get from GenAI will only be as good as the data you put into it. If someone is using GenAI to write a poem, there are no right or wrong answers. But mission-critical enterprise applications are going to require near 100% accuracy. If you don’t employ high-quality data in your GenAI efforts, you won’t get the results that you are expecting.

In setting your GenAI strategy, be sure to consider the broader implications. Consuming a lot of compute and power will have an impact on the planet and your sustainability goals. So, make sure that you’re using GenAI in a sensible manner. Leverage technology and choose suppliers that go beyond using buzzwords and really demonstrate their commitment to sustainable product design, minimising waste, reducing power consumption and lowering CO2 emissions.

Make sure your strategy positions you to be agile because things are moving rapidly, and there are already a number of acquisitions and consolidation in this space. Plan and build for GenAI in a way that keeps you flexible because what worked a few months ago may not work in the future.

Transforming a business with GenAI

It’s still very early days for GenAI, and the technology is continuing to evolve very rapidly. However, by being very clear on the business benefits you are seeking and then selecting the appropriate tools, significant benefits can be achieved.

The result can be more efficient operations, lower costs, and improved levels of customer service.

George Dragatsis, ANZ Chief Technology Officer at Hitachi Vantara.

Last Updated on October 9, 2024 by George Dragatsis