Catherine Lian, managing director and technology leader, IBM Malaysia (left) and Kitman Cheung, director of technical sales – APAC, IBM Technology – Software.
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm and businesses that can harness the transformative potential of this technology stand to propel their operations into a new frontier of productivity, innovation and competitiveness.
A new global IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV) study on “CEO decision-making in the age of AI, Act with Intention” reveals that 75% of chief executive officers surveyed globally believe the organisation with the most advanced generative AI will have a competitive advantage.
A total of 43% also said they are using generative AI to inform strategic decisions, with 36% using the technology for operational decisions.
“We are in a unique time of AI. At IBM, we call this the opportunity of a lifetime, because everybody has to decide today how they are going to take advantage of the disruptive technology that could accelerate their business, or being left behind,” said Catherine Lian, managing director and technology leader at IBM Malaysia.
The transformative power of AI, however, also comes with challenges.
An IBM 2022 Global AI Adoption Index, which surveyed about 7,500 business leaders around the world, found the major roadblocks that are still holding companies back from the benefit of AI.
This includes difficulties integrating data across clouds, a lack of tools to develop models and necessary AI skills and AI expertise, and a lack of strategy in reducing bias in the organisation’s AI.
Nevertheless, IBM recognises that AI for business has unique needs.
Enterprises need access to a full technology stack that enables them to train, tune and deploy AI models, including foundation models and machine learning capabilities, across their organisation with trusted data, speed, and governance – all in one place and to run across any cloud environment in order to have a successful AI adoption.
In comes IBM Watsonx to address the challenge of scaling and operationalising AI and bridge the gap between AI technology and business outcomes. It is an IBM AI and data platform that provides business users, data scientists and developers with self-service access to high-quality, proprietary IBM foundation models.
Director of technical sales, software – IBM Technology, APAC, Kitman Cheung said: “With the development of foundation models, AI for business is more powerful than ever. Foundation models make deploying AI significantly more scalable, affordable and efficient.”
IBM’s goal in rolling out watsonx – which consists of watsonx.ai, watsonx.data and watsonx.governance – is to help businesses interact and converse with customers and employees, automate business workflows and IT processes, free up your employees from repetitive work and help empower them to deliver faster and better outcomes, be protected against threats.
“Watsonx offers a solution by delivering one place to utilise state-of-the-art tools to advance their machine learning and generative AI initiatives at scale.
“Leveraging these different tools means businesses will be able to train, tune and deploy AI across their operations with trusted data, speed and governance,” Cheung said.
IBM watsonx.ai is a next-generation enterprise studio designed to empower AI builders. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools and capabilities for building and tuning foundation models, generative AI and machine learning.
On the other hand, IBM watsonx.data – the fit-for-purpose data store built on an open lakehouse architecture – is a data management solution designed to optimise governed data and AI workloads.
This solution can manage workloads both on-premise and across multi-cloud environments. With this solution, an organisation can reduce data warehouse costs by up to 50%.
Like any technology going through rapid development, AI can be hazardous, especially in business settings. Businesses need AI that provides accurate results they can trust.
An AI governance toolkit that can protect customer privacy, proactively detect model bias and drift, and help organisations meet their ethics standards, IBM watsonx.governance enables organisations to establish trust, maintain compliance and mitigate potential risks in their AI initiatives.
“As AI continues to evolve, organisations that embrace these advancements and leverage platforms like Watsonx will have a distinct advantage in unlocking new opportunities, enhancing customer experiences and driving sustainable business growth for the future.
“Let’s put AI to work and make the world work better – together,” Lian concludes.
