Davos 2024: AI transformation is on top of the mind for businesses, says Publicis Sapient's Nigel Vaz

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the center stage not only at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024 but also for many businesses that are looking to transform to drive growth, Publicis Sapient's Nigel Vaz told Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the 54th annual meeting of the forum in Davos.

The Global CEO of the digital business transformation company said that with AI, companies can achieve greater growth without incurring as much cost.

"AI has a big role to play specifically in the context of tasks that were historically not technology-enabled. Things like complex decisioning like in banking. Credit decisioning or risk has had an AI in parts but now you're starting to see entire ecosystems where loan origination, mortgage distribution happens entirely on an automated basis based on learning and training models that institutions run," Vaz said .

He added that there are some core fundamental building blocks that are enablers to AI.

"Often companies say to me that they need to talk about their AI strategy. My first comment is, let's talk first about your data strategy. Because if you've actually established a really solid foundation, to ensure that every aspect of your organisation's data is being harvested, you understand how to train models using it. We were doing AI for clients 10 years ago in machine learning and then predictive AI. And now, we're talking about generative AI, but the fundamental building blocks is how you use your data. We often talk about these capabilities as speed capabilities. With generative AI you're starting to see creative industries start to come into the fore because we move from predicting outcomes to now creating which is a big shift," Vaz said.

Also read: Davos 2024: India's massive digital infra will help it take AI leap, says PwC chief Bob Moritz

He said that they are working with healthcare organisations where they are analysing every single bit of data coming out of a patient in a hospital and alerting doctors on a predictive basis to potential illnesses that person will have based on how their physiology is responding to various drugs.

He said that while we are living in an uncertain time and there's lots of volatility, people are still asking themselves if we don't transform now, then when.

"If you haven't started to make the pivot to shift your business to embrace digital which is essentially when you look at countries like India, the entirety of the new generation of consumption is happening on platforms that are digital."

Vaz said that, although many companies they engage with understand the immediate financial challenges resulting from the shift, they are prioritising aspects they consider existential within the context of their transformation.

Also read: Davos 2024: Moving towards G0 and T3 world order, says BCG's Neeraj Aggarwal

When it comes to countries that are ahead in the AI and transformation race, Vaz said that Asia is leapfrogging in terms of the adoption of data and AI.

"Asia is leapfrogging huge aspects of what the West has already done. You are seeing the shift in mobile, the shift in terms of adoption of data and AI. The UPI and the public infrastructure is phenomenal. So you are seeing a huge leap forward like that. In the West, the primary focus right now is to ensure delivering more growth with less. That comes through by embracing a faster digital future."

He added, "If you look at industries like groceries, online grocery is the fastest growing sector worldwide. while grocery as a category overall is pretty static. In financial services, almost every large bank is on some journey towards becoming a fintech, whether that's in the retail banking space, or more complex arenas, like trade finance, payments. All of these were heavily paper driven, large process driven, and now they're moving to smart, intelligent, automated processes. So, you are starting to see that shift happen pretty rapidly."

Vaz said that the health industry has some catching up to do when it comes to digital adoption.