New Center of Excellence in Prague Helps Companies with Generative AI

A new center of excellence for generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been inaugurated in Prague at Chodov by IBM Consulting.

The center’s primary focus is to assist businesses in enhancing the security and efficiency of their employees’ work with AI. Companies across various sectors, including marketing, human resources, and finance, utilize AI services alongside their IT needs. However, the intention is not to replace human labor with AI.

Martin Švík, the CTO of IBM for the Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe region, remarks, “following the initial excitement during the launch of ChatGPT, we are now entering a phase of sobering.” According to Švík, centers specializing in generative AI, which enables the creation of texts, images, and diverse content based on training data, have experienced a swift start.

Clients have reported up to a seventy percent increase in work efficiency with the initial implementation of AI models, as stated by Peter Vaculík, the manager of the AI center in Prague. This improvement has been observed across industries, including banking and mobile operators. Additionally, the center places a strong emphasis on data security, considering the valid concerns surrounding AI bias and data protection.

Vaculík further explains that deploying enterprise AI on a large scale requires a complex internal strategy involving multiple models, with humans remaining at the core.

Artificial intelligence has found application even in electric scooters. Companies recognize the significance of regulation in this regard.

A recent survey conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value reveals that 79% of executives struggle to ensure the safety and absence of discriminatory or biased patterns in their AI models.

Švík informs, “The new center builds upon decades of experience in the field and domain of artificial intelligence, helping some of the world’s largest organizations transform their key processes.”

The survey indicates that generative AI is predominantly employed in finance (34%), human resources (41%), supply chain management (45%), marketing and sales (40%), customer services (57%), and IT services and technologies (63%).

Vaculík highlights that generative AI can automate routine tasks, enabling employees to focus on higher-value activities. It also possesses substantial potential in creative content and code generation, content summarization, and search.

However, according to Dominik Hádl, SVP CEO of consulting firm Monsterlab, AI is currently an assistant and won’t fully replace human professionals for a considerable time.

He believes AI will enhance work efficiency and performance in various fields but acknowledges that it is still unable to generate new solutions independently. Human involvement remains crucial in the complex realm of software engineering, though advancements and increased autonomy from AI can be anticipated in the future.