Australia is leading in AI adoption, but experts say it risks falling behind without faster innovation. Well to discuss how AI can benefit businesses, key adoption strategies and Australia's path to a leadership. Flora Rotar is Chief AI Officer at Avanade, and he joins us now from Welcome to Oz. Thanks for joining us. Tell us about your role there as Chief AI Officer at Avanade. Yeah. So my role is that of a Chief AI officer. And actually I believe we were one of the first organizations in the world to formally appoint AC level executive as a as a in charge of AI. And the reason for it is that we really see and believe that AI has the potential to transform our business. It really transformed the entire professional services. Industry even, and my job is to make sure that we are disrupting ourselves and that we are fully prepared for this change and fully seizing the opportunity. When you say disrupting yourselves, what do you mean by that? Well, you know, we believe that generative AI has the potential to disrupt professional services. It actually has the potential to disrupt pretty much every single industry. And by disrupt, I mean reinvent ourselves. So reimagine. The services we provide, our value proposition, our commercial model, the way we're organized, the way we manage the risk reward and also the way we make this an opportunity for our people, which is the most important part of all. You talk about opportunity and. But is there also a case? Perhaps we should be somewhat fearful. There's not a great deal of regulation in places there. Does there need to be sort of further guardrails do you need, because there's a lot of talk obviously about the dangers of as well as the opportunities. Yeah. So regulation is emerging, especially in Europe. Europe is quite far along establishing quite strict regulation actually with the EU AI Act, which has become law. Other parts of the world are following suit as well. I believe regulation is really important and it's. Actually a good thing, but I would say actually organizations need to aim even higher than regulation because I don't see regulation being able to keep up with technology. So the way we're looking about it is actually the purpose of AI. The purpose of AI is to serve humans and to empower us as individuals to become the best versions of ourselves, to thrive in our professional and personal lives, and to do things we might not have. Imagine we would be able to do and I believe there is a higher purpose with AI as truly a power for good regulation will make sure that. Companies do not do unintended bad things but I believe we need to. We as an industry need to aim higher than just regulation. Would you be wary of having government regulation which does have a history of perhaps stifling innovation? Would it be preferable to have self regulation from businesses do you think? No, I think I think government should regulate and actually if I may, I think it seems to me like Australia is striking a good balance between managing the risk. An opportunity. So European Union is quite heavily regulated. There are some which argue it is too strongly regulated. I would argue other parts of the world are too loosely regulated and it seems to me like Australia has a pretty good middle ground around managing risk and benefit and opportunity. Before we talk about the opportunity, what are the risks? Did you see them right now? The risk is that many, you know, unintended biases. That we amplify. Bad content, creation of undesirable content. I'm sure you've you know, you've read and heard all about deep fakes and the way they're being used by criminals. But even if you're you know, if you're well intended with the usage of AI, there again risks here. There is risk around not being able to explain, explain ability around the decisions which AI makes, for example. If you're applying for a mortgage, if or if you're, you know, the way your insurance premium is being set, the risks around unintended biases because the data that the AI is reasoning on top of is not clean and it's not accurate and representative. There are risks around we as humans see seeding the accountability for the decisions and the recommendations and the content that AI creates and you know. We, we are accepting or dealing with hallucinations or bad decisions. So there are many, many risks actually with AI, even if you're well intended. And the way to manage this is to have a really robust responsible AI framework in place, the technology, the processes and tools which allows us to make sure that we govern and we manage and we control the, the AI. Technology, of course, this technology is very new and it's evolving. How do businesses keep pace with that and work out what would fit with their business and how they can build their businesses as a result? Yeah. So I think for the for the last few years, quite a lot of organizations have started to pilot, prototype, experiment with generative AI to understand, you know, what are the risks? How does the technology work? How do we manage it? What kind of benefit do we have? I think what we're seeing right now is sort of a second iteration of adoption where companies are truly focusing on value. You know, what is the transformative value that AI is going to generate for us? How do we potentially use this to transform an industry, to reimagine an industry, even to reimagine ourselves as a business or maybe just streamline the business process? So for the last few years, we've seen a lot of experimentation. I think the technologies coming of age now and it has a level of maturity where I see companies use. This to actually address some of humanity's biggest challenges and opportunities around healthcare, discovery of new drugs, education, financial stability. Onwards and onwards. So it, it is actually starting to have really deep fundamental societal impact as a force for good. So although we sometimes we, you know, we focus on the bad and the risks, eyes really truly believe and I see that there is a ton of value being created for us as humans, for humanity. And Flora, what observations do you have of what is happening here in Australia in terms of AI adoption among the business community? I think it is quite sage. So I see Australian organizations, we've done a significant amount of research in this space across geographies and around the world. And one statistics which really stood out for me is that in Australia. Companies expect a 4X return of investment on on generative AI, which tells me that you're very focused on business value and you're really working quite hard and making sure that you build the business case and the road map for how to extract that value. Another really interesting observation for Australia is the very high focus on responsible and ethical usage. So that makes you. As a standout, I think very a lot of focus on using the technology in a human and humane way, with all the responsible AI dimensions I mentioned around desirability of the content which is being created, avoiding biases, explain ability transparency, making sure that we as humans are ultimately accountable for it. And I have to say, it's great to see Australia being one of the leaders in this space. What does the world look like in 10 years with AI? I know that's a big question that's about to put five years even given how quickly it's evolving, but. And and in particular, I guess if businesses don't adapt readily and quickly, what happens to them so. I I can't predict the future, I'm not a futurologist, but what I could say is. This to me seems like an equivalent of what was happening the last time we had an exponential technology trend, which was the advent of Internet. So it feels to me like 1990, five, 1996. I think there are some businesses which you know, if you remember back then were creatinga.com website with some brochureware and they were branding themselves being digital. At the same time there were some companies. Which truly understood what was happening with the technology and the potential and the fact that the cost of distribution was going to 0 and completely new business models. And you know, the Titans of today were born back then. I am absolutely certain the same is happening now. So this is an exponential technology. The cost of innovation is going towards zero and we're going to see the next industry Titans being born. We're going to see industries being reimagined. I also think the ones which are dragging their feet or you know, just looking at yet another chat bot type of solution, that's the equivalent of putting, you know, a. com and calling it a day.
