Covering Disruptive Technology Powering Business in The Digital Age

The recent rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has shown that this is not just a technological trend, but a cultural shift that will reshape our world as fundamentally as the Industrial Revolution did in the 18th century.

However, it isn’t easy to assess exactly how this revolution will affect the organisations and, most importantly, the people on the ground who are experiencing it. At the inaugural Tech Tarik Think Tank, hosted by GlobeOSS and IBM, a diverse group of representatives from prominent organisations came together to share their experiences and insights on the evolving landscape of technology and AI.

The Tech Tarik Think Tank is a unique forum where IT leaders from various industries come together to discuss the most pressing enterprise technology issues shaping the world today. In its debut session, the focus was on the hot topic of GenAI—specifically, how organisations can safely and ethically integrate this powerful technology into their operations.

Tech Tarik Think Tank Answers: Is AI a Must-Have for Today’s Businesses?

Starting off the first-ever Tech Tarik Think Tank, Garrick Yap from GlobeOSS highlighted how quickly the tech landscape has evolved, especially in recent years. He shared that while the company started in the telco sector 17 years ago, it has since expanded into data, AI, and automation in the last five years. This shift has allowed the company to help various industries, including financial services, government, manufacturing, and healthcare, navigate the rapidly changing environment.

It was clear as the discussion went on that every company has been affected by the rapid development of GenAI. The main difference lies in the level and maturity of adoption within each organisation. Some companies have already fully embraced AI by meticulously mapping out use cases, developing their own internal GenAI tools, and creating frameworks for deployment. Others, however, are still in the exploratory phase, cautiously testing the waters as they define the Proof of Concept (POC) and evaluate the Return on Investment (ROI) for implementation.

What was indisputable, though, was that AI adoption is inevitable. Not a single company indicated they were completely bypassing AI, and even in cases where it’s not yet part of company policy, it has already piqued the curiosity of employees at every level. Many have started experimenting with AI tools and the impact is already being felt across different job functions.

Andrew Martin, Group Publisher at Asia Online Publishing Group, moderates the Tech Tarik Think Tank panel discussion.

“Guardrails” for Responsible Implementation

The discussion among the region’s “Think Tanks” addressed numerous issues relevant to the challenges organisations face with GenAI. Nevertheless, two concerns repeatedly emerged as critical considerations for organisations across all industries and sectors.

The first is that organisations must not blindly adopt AI. Clear guardrails are a must to ensure its effective use and mitigate risks.

The panellists at the Tech Tarik Think Tank agreed that organisations should approach GenAI with a clear plan and framework and not be swept up by the hype. Before anything else, they should establish a policy or set of guidelines within the organisational framework. Key considerations include:

• Defining objectives: They need to determine what specific problems they want the AI to address or what goals they want it to achieve. Understanding the intended use case is critical to effective implementation.
• Selecting models: They should select the appropriate Large Language Models (LLMs) that meet their organisation’s requirements and evaluate which models best fit their goals and infrastructure.
• Change management: It is important to assess the necessary changes to the organisation’s processes and workflows to effectively integrate AI.
• User training: Develop a strategy to train users in the proper and responsible use of AI tools. Proper training will help maximise the benefits of AI and minimise the risks.

Another crucial consideration is whether you should use a public GPT model or develop a customised version for your organisation. Customising an AI model can be especially important for companies that work with sensitive customer, financial, or proprietary data. Using a public GenAI tool carries the risk of data being tapped or used to train public models, which could jeopardise data privacy.

While it’s undeniable that many organisations and their employees may be eager to explore the exciting possibilities of AI, these risks must be carefully considered. Custom models, or models that are specifically trained and tailored to an organisation’s unique data and requirements, offer greater control and security and mitigate potential privacy concerns.

Although for many it may still be early days for widespread AI adoption, taking these considerations into account is critical to successfully integrating GenAI into business practice and ensuring its effective and secure use.

Humans vs Machines: The New Workplace Reality

The second major topic of discussion during the Tech Tarik Think Tank was the impact of AI on employment. Most of the panellists, who have extensive experience in the IT industry, acknowledged that few technologies have evolved as quickly as GenAI in the past few years.

A few panellists in the Tech Tarik Think Tank raised concerns about the efficiency of GenAI and its potential to cut costs, which could lead to job losses, particularly in lower-level operational roles. However, what sets GenAI apart from previous technologies is its impact on creative professions. Over the years, technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) may have primarily threatened repetitive, manual tasks, but GenAI, such as ChatGPT, is now also making inroads into areas that require creativity and complex problem-solving.

This shift introduces a new dimension of job displacement and raises important questions about how organisations can balance technological advances with the impact on the workforce. Particularly in the coming years, as the tech continues to mature, businesses should consider strategies for reskilling and upskilling employees to adapt to these changes and ensure that the benefits of GenAI are realised without undue harm to the workforce.

The good news is that even among the “Think Tanks,” many still believe that GenAI will not completely replace human jobs. The human element remains essential, especially in overseeing AI systems, validating their results, fine-tuning their performance, and continuously training the models. Human intervention will be needed to ensure that AI tools are aligned with business goals and ethical standards and avoid issues such as bias, inaccuracies, or unintended consequences. While AI can automate certain tasks, for now at least, it still relies heavily on human expertise to function optimally and adapt to complex, evolving environments.

The consensus around the Tech Tarik Think Tank table was clear: Once the necessary guardrails and policies are in place, organisations have to embrace GenAI. Its potential to augment human workers, increase productivity, optimise efficiency, and deliver unprecedented data-driven insights is simply too transformative to overlook.

However, a key challenge lies in ensuring that employees are equipped to handle the inevitable integration of AI technology. Whether it’s through hiring skilled talent or upskilling existing staff, the transition will depend largely on the passion and adaptability of the workforce. Ultimately, success in the age of AI requires not only the right tools but also the willingness of employees to continuously learn and evolve alongside these technologies.

Garrick Yap, Globe OSS (left) and Eddy Liew, IBM (right)

Forging the Next Chapter of Innovation

In relation to the issues discussed at the Tech Tarik Think Tank, Eddy Liew, Presales Engineering Leader at IBM Malaysia, referenced a very relevant quote from MIT researcher Karim Lakhani: “AI will not replace humans—but humans with AI will replace humans without AI.” He explained that even in a global company like IBM, the GenAI revolution has driven significant changes. AI is being used across the board to optimise go-to-market strategies, realise large-scale projects faster and enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Eddy shared that internal teams, for example, are using the IBM watsonx Code Assistant to speed up code generation and increase productivity by up to 40%. In the area of application development, he highlighted how IBM Concert, another solution powered by watsonx AI that gives organisations a detailed view of their application landscape, now allows users to ask questions in natural language to understand the potential impact of changes, and the AI generates both operational and strategic suggestions to improve performance and resilience.

Most importantly, given that inaccuracies and hallucinations can be a major problem, Eddy emphasised that with a solution like IBM Concert, users don’t have to take the AI’s results at face value. They can challenge the AI to explain its reasoning, predictions or conclusions, which encourages a more transparent and collaborative approach.

He believes that this kind of synergy and explainability is the “next chapter” of the AI journey, something that IBM is fully embracing and applying.

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