Nov 03 2022
Management

CDW Executive SummIT: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of IT

AI can be a catalyst in business functions, from HR to sales and everything in between.

The future of technology is here and now. Among the new technologies leading the revolution is artificial intelligence. According to Deloitte, 94 percent of businesses report that AI is critical to their success over the next five years.

In addition, IDC projects that by 2024, 70 percent of Asia’s 2,000 biggest companies “will expand the use of AI/ML across all business-critical horizontal functions like marketing, legal, HR, procurement, and supply chain logistics.”

At last week’s CDW Executive SummIT, John Fanelli, NVIDIA’s vice president of enterprise software, presented a session entitled, “How to Fast Track your AI Journey.” Fanelli told the audience, “Everything we do is either to drive more revenue or to decrease your costs. And AI is one of those things that does both.”

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Speeding Up Essential Business Processes

Because AI is a new technology, it may be daunting to think about where it belongs in your organization. Fanelli recommended asking, “My business does something. How can AI make my business better?

The answer can help companies brainstorm how AI might help overcome challenges. “We take that problem, break it up and solve it in parallel,” he said.

Even though AI is considered an advanced technology, “over 35,000 companies today are running AI, they're using media data, so there is a use case for AI as part of every organization,” he said.

RELATED: Find out how AI is being used by banks to generate revenue and mitigate risk.

The Role AI Can Play in HR Functions

Fanelli explored the various ways AI can meet business needs more efficiently by highlighting the functionality AI has in the HR space. “Every business hires people, right? And today when people apply online, you put a job out there, you can get thousands and thousands of resumes. Well, you can use AI to look at those resumes and sort out top applicants. With AI, you can bring 10,000 resumes down to 100.”

Using AI in HR functions not only shortens the amount of time applicants wait for responses, but also helps fill vacancies so companies can be more efficient and effective over time. “Jobs that would take two hours, we can run them in seconds with AI,” Fanelli said.

DIVE DEEPER: Discover how businesses are reinventing themselves by using AI in the cloud.

Decision-Making and the Power of AI

One way to incorporate AI within any business is by driving customer and business decision-making. “Applications that your engineers are using to build your products or the things you're thinking about can be AI-infused,” Fanelli said. “AI can make suggestions based on last year's sales or based on your competitors' products. It can even factor in customer feedback and make suggestions about your products.”  

Further emphasizing the power of customer-based decision-making, Fanelli explained, “Recommender systems are AI driven. Every business selling something should have a recommender system, not just Netflix. Recommender systems help customers find the right product for them, because you know your product better than they do in most cases. When we — as businesses — are making recommendations to customers. We're selling products faster and pricing them more appropriately. AI allows us to do a better job supporting customers. Therefore, business revenue continues to go up.”

Keep this page bookmarked for articles and videos from the event, follow us on Twitter @BizTechMagazine and participate in the official event conversation on Twitter at #JoinCDW.

Photography by Kwynci Fields
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