The ability and efficacy to harness vast amounts of data and drawing descriptive and predictive analysis, without negating the power of human intelligence, would provide the winning edge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI), a senior IBM executive said on Wednesday. Speaking at a RAISE 2020 event, IBM India and South Asia Managing Director Sandip Patel said the world is at a critical inflection point and there will be use of AI at scale, given the extreme digital acceleration seen amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He noted that several sectors across retail, finance, healthcare and e-commerce are already deploying AI to increase efficiency and productivity, enhance customer service, and build a stronger security cover.

"These digital transformation journeys have further accelerated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the pace of digital acceleration compressed over a span of 8-10 months is something that would have actually taken years to happen," he said.

"So, the important element and challenge is to harness the data, curate it and put it in context of enabling faster decision making. The data is the most powerful when we are able to apply it to our decision making at scale and speed, and to achieve this, we need AI at scale," he added.

Patel noted that in order to capitalise AI to the fullest, it needs to be democratised, trusted and open.

"AI is only as good as the data that you're using for it. And, as long as there is a lot of work which is involved in tagging and classifying the data correctly...companies have to trust it knowing that even after using AI, they will have full ownership and protection of their data and insights," he said.

Patel added that AI must be fair (free from bias), accountable, explainable, secure and that openness is really important and key to driving continuous innovation.

The session also saw participation of Shalini Warrier, executive director, chief operating officer and business head (retail) at Federal Bank; and Tarun Aggarwal, assistant vice-president (engineering) at Maruti Suzuki.

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'Ability to harness data without negating human intelligence to provide winning edge in use of AI' - ETCIO.com