Interview with Prof. Dr. Gerard de Melo

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) represents an epochal change: AI has the potential to revolutionise almost every mental and, in the medium term, many physical activities, including management decisions, by enabling huge amounts of data and simulation-based forecasts.

In this interview, Prof. Dr. Gerard de Melo (Department of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems at the Hasso Plattner Institute) discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) will transform companies.

How will AI change companies?

De Melo: Germany’s prosperity to date is due in no small part to the country’s engineering skills and inventive spirit. With the rapid progress of AI, we are now entering a phase of epochal change in which we will see who will lead the way in the coming decades. There is hardly any intellectual activity that cannot be fundamentally changed by AI. Management decisions, for example, can also be put on a much more solid footing by incorporating huge amounts of data and AI-supported simulations. In the medium term, this will also include many physical activities, such as logistics and production.

How can the use of AI generate business value?

De Melo: An AI can be cloned tens of thousands of times at the touch of a button and doesn’t need to sleep to do its work. It can search through an entire archive for relevant information within a short space of time. However, the aim should not be to replace staff with AI, but rather to develop entirely new product categories and business models that fully utilise these new possibilities.

Of course, increased productivity is also possible in existing business processes if AI can be a useful tool in everyday working life. With AI, we can brainstorm better, analyse data and often completely automate boring routine tasks.

Why do companies need AI strategies?

De Melo: The example of the internet shows us that even long-standing, traditional companies can be on the brink of collapse if they do not pay enough attention to new developments. In today’s world, it is by no means enough to simply build up AI expertise in individual departments. Rather, all processes in the company and, in the medium term, the entire corporate strategy should be rethought, taking into account the many new possibilities offered by AI. Of course, the legal and ethical framework conditions must also be kept in mind, such as the requirements of the EU AI Regulation.

Is it enough if I introduce ChatGPT in the company?

De Melo: Even though ChatGPT is on everyone’s lips and indeed offers a wide range of possible applications, this is only one of many thousands of possibilities. There is a very wide range of different solutions. We often need AI systems that have been customised to internal company data and processes and are equipped with industry-specific knowledge. In many application contexts, a chat interface is a completely wrong choice, so AI should be used in a completely different form. In addition, there are often special requirements for the reliability, speed and transparency of automated decisions. Finally, these must be evaluated in conjunction with the relevant framework conditions, such as the available AI resources, in order to design a suitable AI solution.