AI: companies are ready, but skills need to be updated

Even the most amazing technologies do not transform a business until they are adopted to change a process or create new products or services. Artificial intelligence is no exception; on the contrary, adoption is an integral part of the creative process. It is not a technology you simply buy and use: it must be thoroughly understood, designed and tested before you can trust it.

“Artificial intelligence drives innovation and accelerates business growth; it’s not just about cutting a few costs,” says Enza Truzzolillo, CEO of Lenovo Italia. “Meaningful projects are designed with the specific characteristics of each individual company in mind.” It follows that adoption is not an overnight process.

A glimpse into this reality can be found in the results of a survey carried out by a Young Entrepreneurs committee of Confindustria in collaboration with Lenovo. A total of 621 entrepreneurs took part in the survey. Half of these companies are growing, and 23 per cent have exports accounting for more than 30 per cent of their turnover. A quarter of these companies have a turnover exceeding €10 million: all the others are smaller. However, among these companies, only 18.7 per cent use artificial intelligence in a structured way, whilst two-thirds are in the study or testing phase. 71 per cent believe it represents an opportunity. 81 per cent believe that Italian companies are lagging behind their European counterparts. The main problem is seen as the training of staff.

But behind these figures, Truzzolillo sees the diverse range of challenges faced by companies. “Artificial intelligence is a catalyst for results. It serves to harness companies’ data and assets to create shared knowledge on which to launch innovative processes.” It is, first and foremost, an organisational issue. “The first step is to define the company’s distinctive know-how and separate it from other data. What drives the core business should be handled using in-house artificial intelligence, with ‘tailor-made’ projects. Anything that does not constitute the core business, on the other hand, can be processed in the cloud using industrial models. It is an organisational issue.” And research confirms this: 58 per cent of respondents believe that the most urgent skills to develop relate to change management. A minority cite technical skills.

‘But since artificial intelligence is costly, in terms of both energy and technology, priorities need to be set. Lenovo takes a hybrid approach, providing the technology and support for projects that partly involve data which must remain within the company and partly can utilise the cloud and large models. Exemplary cases? At the European Institute of Oncology, where data is highly sensitive, the project has focused on developing sophisticated predictive diagnostic models on-premises to deliver personalised services. At Corrado La Forgia’s Vhit, which operates in the automotive components sector, artificial intelligence has been integrated into the production process to drastically reduce product defects. And at The Edge Company, which specialises in airport security, a physical AI model has been developed that allows for the real-time analysis of all the data needed to predict the movements of flocks of birds that could hinder aircraft take-off. These are examples of projects with systems protected against know-how leaks, suitable for creating new services and products or for improving quality. They have nothing to do with mere cost-cutting. ‘Artificial intelligence is not the same for everyone. Like innovation, of which it becomes an essential component,’ concludes Truzzolillo.