Everyone is suddenly talking about generative AI. Disclaimer: This article was written by a person. It is fascinating to think about software that can generate dynamic, personalized content. Chatbots are nothing new, but a growing suite of AI-based image and video generators, such as DALLE 2, Fotor and Runway (to name a few), has the potential to democratize AI by putting it in the hands of everyone and every company. Integration of these "co-pilots", which can assist with everyday tasks, into mainstream software products holds even more promise.
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The potential of Generative AI as an economic driver in Asia is particularly high, based on the advanced digital adoption levels. India and China have already become global hubs for tech talent. Japan, Korea and Singapore are leaders in robotics and smart cities, while Beijing, Jakarta and Bangkok have a vibrant startup ecosystem. All of this creates a solid foundation for developers in the region to create locally relevant solutions.
If implemented responsibly, generative AI will have a ripple-effect that transforms industries and fosters innovation and productivity, while improving billions of people's lives. What are the main applications and success stories of this technology in Asia as it reaches a turning point? How should organizations in the region prepare for innovation?
Unlocking the human potential and creativity
The promise of generative artificial intelligence is that it will streamline any language-based or process-driven routine task. This will support the human capabilities while allowing for more creative and productive use of time. These possibilities are being explored by leading businesses in Asia. Panasonic Connect, for example, introduced an AI-based virtual assistant in Japan to its 12,500 employees by February 2023. In India, the leading online travel company MakeMyTrip, which owns the Goibibo travel app and the redBus travel app, has launched voice-assisted reservation in Indian languages starting with Hindi to complement its human agents' work.
According to an IDC study, 70% of Asia-Pacific companies are exploring generative AI technology or have already committed to investing in it. Hiroki Muraino, Senior Manager of IT and Digital Strategy at Panasonic Connect, says that he believes all business professionals are going to use AI every day. "Our decision was not to use AI or not, but to begin using it."
Microsoft's 2023 Work Trend Index is based upon a survey of 31 000 people from 31 countries. According to the results, 78% respondents in Asia-Pacific would delegate AI to reduce their workload, if possible. Three-quarters of respondents said they'd be comfortable delegating to AI, whether it was for administrative tasks or for analytical and creative aspects of their roles.
Developers in Asia have the opportunity to use an innovation tool with the potential to make a powerful and broad impact quickly. Generative AI is available to everyone, from India to Indonesia. It doesn't matter if you work for a startup or a large company. Eric Boyd is the corporate vice president for Microsoft's AI Platform. He describes how OpenAI can generate content and summarise it, create code and reason based on data. He says that "these four use cases are dominant." "We have only scratched the surface in terms of the applications we can see."
Asia's technology forerunners
Organizations that are experimenting with generative AI anticipate or have already experienced tangible results. At Panasonic Connect, for example, the implementation ConnectAI built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI platform simplifies tasks that could take up an employee's entire day, like drafting emails, gathering data, and writing codes. To get help, employees can now type a question using natural language. The platform currently logs 5,000 questions per day. Yasuyuki Higachi, Panasonic Connect's CEO used the tool to create a welcome message for new employees. Higuchi says that in the future, "humans are going to focus on high-level work rather than simple tasks." "I believe this is necessary."
Employees have cited benefits, although the impacts are anecdotal. One example is being able read a summary rather than the entire version of a lengthy legal document within 10 minutes. The IT and digital department crunches responses to IT surveys in one hour, rather than taking an entire week. In Japan, almost a third of the population has reached retirement age. This is a vital opportunity to increase labor productivity. Mukaino said that generative AI can be used to "increase employee productivity" in the face of a labor shortage. "AI allows us focus on creative tasks which only humans are capable of doing."
MakeMyTrip’s chatbot, powered by Azure OpenAI Service as well, will allow mobility for hundreds of millions of Indians, the most populous country in the world. They may be more comfortable booking their holiday via voice interaction than using a smartphone application. Sanjay Mohan is MakeMyTrip’s chief technology officer. He says that these chatbots will ask the same basic questions as an agent. We see them as intelligent assistants to our human agents. They'll get more qualified leads, which they can close faster. "We believe that the productivity and efficiency will be significantly increased for our human agents."
The goal in India, a country with almost 400 different languages, is to enable voice interactions. This will allow anyone to use the platform. The natural language models that power the AI platform need to be fine-tuned in order to achieve this. Mohan says that, "With conversational bots, voice support needs to be fine-tuned for colloquial language usage, something a customer from a small village or town in India would understand or speak." A multimodal chatbot that combines text, voice and video interactions is another goal. It's a new technology. "I don't believe anyone in the industry is able to figure that one out yet."
What is next for the organizations in the region?
There is a real understanding that generative AI must be implemented responsibly and with caution. For AI models to be trained in Asia on dialects and vernacular, organizations need a lot of data. Security and privacy are also important, for example not compromising the personal data of employees or customers. It is important to address issues relating to the accuracy and integrity of AI models, as well the fact that humans will be needed to monitor the generative AI. Mohan says that "the performance characteristics must be of world-class quality before we can roll out this feature to 100% of our customers."
It is important to become a data-driven company, with digital and cloud capabilities. The purpose of a massive cloud computing infrastructure is primarily to support the in-house development capability. In order to optimize their business, organizations that develop their own enterprise apps can use generative AI.
Microsoft is the source of this content. This content was not produced by the editorial staff of MIT Technology Review.
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By: Martha Leibs
Title: Asia’s opportunity for generative AI
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/14/1074434/asias-opportunity-for-generative-ai/
Published Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2023 16:00:00 +0000
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