How companies are tackling the AI revolution | Everything you missed at Singularity Tech Day

Last Wednesday was the fourth edition of Singularity Tech Day, the year’s event on innovation, business, new developments, and use cases in artificial intelligence.

More than 200 representatives from the business sector gathered at this meeting to learn more about AI as a tool to generate value from top-level firms such as Microsoft, Google, Intel, Vodafone, Nestlé, and Prosegur.

The event focused on advances in multimodality, data protection ethics, natural language, plugins, or personalization of artificial intelligence models as the drivers of a new wave of innovation that will change and is already changing the way of doing business in all industries.

Generative AI as the primary focus

Quique Martinez, CEO of Plain Concepts, was in charge of welcoming the event and presented a new framework for the adoption of generative AI, which will provide a controlled environment in the use of this artificial intelligence and prevent information leakage during the interaction of companies with OpenAI services such as ChatGPT.

It is a pioneering tool that has already been tested in different sectors and is well-received thanks to its high reliability in providing data.

“Managers need to be informed about the state of the art of generative AI and adopt a proactive mindset to integrate the technology into their business,” says Quique Martínez. “We are facing a technological revolution that, used with a strategic vision, can generate opportunities for optimization, cost reduction, new business opportunities, and better decision-making,” he added.

How to set up an AI company from scratch in 10 minutes

The second to take the stage was Pau García-Milà, CEO of Founderz, who explained in an “express” way, as is characteristic of his videos, how to create a business prototype using AI tools to generate a business plan, a website, social media content for a whole year or presentations for investors.

“AI does not help us to solve all problems, but to go faster in decision making. Success is failing fast and cheap,” Pau said.

Next Steps for AI

The rest of the meeting featured renowned names such as David Carmona (General Manager, Artificial Intelligence & Innovation at Microsoft), Enrique Mora (Transversal Emerging Tech Lead at Nestlé), Diego Mallada (IT Digital Tech Director at Gestamp), Nera González (Innovation & Product Development Manager at Prosegur), Javier Martínez (Head of Customer Engineers at Google Cloud Iberia), Hind Azegrouz (EMEA AI Inference Lead at Intel), Raúl Alelú (Co-founder and CSO at Healthy Minds Analytics), Esther Sánchez (Innovation & Digital Factory Director at Vodafone Business), David Hurtado (Innovation Lead at Microsoft) and Pedro Serrahima (Director of Customer Experience and Quality at Telefónica).

Each of them presented the concepts that are setting the course of AI and why it will stay. For example, the foundation models have marked the beginning of a new paradigm for this technology. Whereas traditionally, it was necessary to train a specific model to solve each problem, the current scalable AI architecture can create massive, generic, pre-trained models that can be applied to multiple tasks and therefore facilitate the customization of solutions for each company. The user can access them through a natural language that implies democratization of the technology.

Multimodality is another concept that, according to the speakers, will mark a turning point. It provides data to a model such as GPT in any format, e.g., an image, which the system can understand semantically and make hypotheses based on the user’s questions.

Edge AI, the application of artificial intelligence to network devices, from printers to cameras and sensors, was also highlighted. It is a fusion of the physical and digital worlds that allows for pattern detection, fast, local reaction, and cost savings without cloud access.

On the other hand, plugins connect AI to any application in the system, from an app for booking appointments to a music player or office software. The model can activate and manage its functionalities, improving productivity and saving time in the preparation of any task.

Business Trends with Real Use Cases

Nothing better illustrates a concept than a real example, which is why the Singularity Tech Day sessions were marked by use cases already a reality in the work dynamics of the invited companies.

In the field of security, Prosegur presented its advances in the monitoring of images from security cameras, the aim of which is to detect and summarise anomalous behavior.

In food, Nestlé presented how the Machine Learning Hub has become the perfect solution to scale in an organized way and rationalize efforts on a global scale.

In the automotive sector, Gestamp talked about developing internal software that makes the Smart Factory and flexible manufacturing possible, allowing them to make better decisions in real-time.

In the health sector, Healthy Minds Analytics explained the training of algorithms that assess psychosocial risks to detect and prevent mental health problems in companies at an early stage.

For its part, Vodafone presented the conclusions of a report in which it analyses more than 50 real use cases of AI. These models already show tangible benefits in the early detection of illnesses, care for the elderly, electricity grid management, and hyper-personalization.

Singularity Tech Day 2024

After the success of this fourth edition, we are already looking forward to next year, which is sure to be much bigger and full of new developments and advances that have not yet reached the market. We look forward to seeing you at Singularity 2024!

Until then, stay tuned because we will publish this edition’s talks very soon, so you can watch them again.