Tag: #AI

ConnectGreen launches new Biodiversity Credits and Carbon Offsetting Platform harnessing power of AI

Irish sustainability experts ConnectGreen (connectgreen.ie) has launched its innovative biodiversity and carbon offsetting platform, connecting farmers and landowners with companies who are looking for guaranteed, certified and verified biodiversity and carbon offsetting initiatives.

By leveraging the new EU carbon framework, ConnectGreen makes it possible for ordinary landowners, including farmers, to participate in the carbon and biodiversity credits global marketplace and maximise the financial benefits of carbon farming.

John Kelleher, CEO of ConnectGreen commented: “We are calling on farmers and landowners across Ireland to see the revenue potential in the evolving biodiversity credits and carbon offsetting sector. We come from a farming background ourselves and we understand the pressures that farmers are currently under.  With Ireland’s biodiversity plans that aim to rewild and rewet 20 percent of the country’s land, we are partnering with farmers and landowners helping them unlock the potential and opportunity of realising a dependable, long-term income stream from carbon and biodiversity assets on their own land”.

Kelleher added: “We are also highlighting to Irish-based companies the option of securing their biodiversity and carbon credits here in Ireland – why invest in projects in Africa or South America, when our platform offers a wide range of biodiversity and carbon offset initiatives available across Ireland.  Your customers and shareholders will appreciate your action in ensuring your ESG investments are helping to improve the environment right here at home rather than in a project half way round the globe”.

Cattle and sheep farmers Mike Cremins and his Uncle Pat Cremins who are fourth and fifth generation farmers from Meenganaire, Knocknagoshel, Co. Kerry, said: “We have been saying for years that someone has to pay farmers for the great work they do in managing the landscape, in particular, for farmers who own what could be termed poorer land in peatland and mountain areas like ourselves where economic viability is always difficult.  ConnectGreen’s platform with its biodiversity credits and carbon offsetting opportunities is a great way of compensating small farmers and landowners like ourselves for the work we do day in and day out in nurturing the Irish countryside”.

From the outset, ConnectGreen has focussed on providing an opportunity for companies and landowners to collaborate in carbon offsetting in a thoroughly verifiable and certified way, guaranteeing that a reliable and quantifiable level of offsetting is taking place.

Mr. Kelleher concluded: “That is the essence of our ‘triple-lock’: verified, certified and guaranteed.  We offer an unwavering commitment to authenticity and integrity, so every carbon credit purchased through our platform has been rigorously verified by our expert team.

“The carbon market is evolving rapidly and we’re excited to be at the forefront of this new movement in Ireland and across the EU.  ConnectGreen is already engaged with a number of biodiversity and carbon offsetting projects across Ireland, and we have ambitious targets to oversee deals that will facilitate the removal of 250k tons of carbon from the atmosphere by the end of 2024.”

Full details on how the ConnectGreen platform works can be found on the company’s website: ConnectGreen.ie.  The site also features tailored content for both landowners, including farmers, who are looking to maximise income from their holdings. ConnectGreen also offers a “Software as a Service” platform for companies looking to engage in carbon accounting including the monitoring, reporting and verification of biodiversity and carbon assets.

How AI is Shaping the Modern Workplace

The world of work has evolved significantly in our digital age. New technologies have enabled greater connectivity and collaboration between employees whether coming together in-person or working remotely.

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) may have the most profound impact yet on the workplace as we know it. AI is a once-in-a-generation technology that provides significant potential to create more agile, flexible, and efficient workplaces in the future.

From enhancing productivity to fostering collaboration and enhancing the security of digital infrastructure, developing a modern workplace with new AI experiences will enhance the user experience today and set organisations up for success in the future.

An AI-enabled workforce

Most businesses in Ireland already recognise the importance of embracing AI in preparing their organisation for the future. Research by IBEC reveals that nearly two in three Irish businesses believe that AI has the potential to enhance productivity and work conditions.

The race to prepare for an AI-enabled future is already well underway across many industries, with substantial investment in AI-related infrastructure. According to the IDC, total global investment in AI is expected to increase to $301.43 billion by 2026.

The potential impact of the technology is significant and wide-ranging across many industries and applications. AI is key to unlocking value within data and thus is becoming one of the most important tools for businesses of all sizes.

Among the workforce, AI has the capacity to automate many routine tasks, freeing up employees to focus on more strategic and value-added productivity. When you automate intelligently, team members can spend less time on repetitive, routine tasks and more on innovation, creative thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. For example, the use of generative AI (GenAI) tools to create written content or images from prompts can speed up the completion of time-intensive tasks like writing reports creating presentations and proposals, or emails. In the advertising industry, these tools are already being used to quickly develop high-quality assets that may only need minor editing from human designers before being rolled out in campaigns.

AI tools can also be used to enhance collaboration and communication across the workforce. For instance, AI-powered notetaking tools that transcribe and analyse meeting content can be used to ensure better understanding and information sharing across teams saving time on mundane tasks.

The Role of AI powered workstations

As organisations look to advance their AI capabilities, AI-powered workstations are set to be a crucial pillar in ensuring their workforce can harness the power of the technology at scale. The development and deployment of AI technologies on workstations offers significant strategic and operational benefits for businesses from greater flexibility to scaling and simplified implementation.

As the use of AI tools in the workplace rapidly grows and AI models increase in size and complexity, AI workstations can provide a highly scalable infrastructure solution that meets the evolving needs of organisations. Recently launched, Dell’s new range of AI-powered Precision desktop and laptop workstations provide enhanced support for the high level of data processing required to manage AI workloads in the modern workplace.

Each workstation is equipped with a neural processing unit, a specialised processor optimised for handling complex mathematical computations integral to artificial neural networks. This high performance is complemented by large storage and memory to enable the efficient handling of vast amounts of data and speed up the development cycle of AI models.

AI-powered workstations also provide increased flexibility for organisations in the development of AI models. High-end processors and powerful GPUs built into the workstations enable developers to rapidly prototype and fine-tune generative AI models locally in a cost-effective way.

By providing a fully integrated solution for the entire development process of AI models, from data preparation to model training and deployment, these workstations can ensure that your organisation is fully prepared for the future, whatever your use case.

Building a more secure work environment

As organisations face increasing levels of cyber threats, GenAI can be a powerful tool to strengthen cyber resilience in the workplace. GenAI can enhance detection and respond to anomalies and potential threats in real time. If malicious actors do gain access, it can isolate attackers and stop them from spreading further.

With flexible and remote working models becoming standard in many organisations and establishing themselves as a long-term working practice, GenAI can also help to address the endpoint security challenges associated with employees accessing company resources from different locations and devices. By continuously monitoring user behaviour and network activity, GenAI can strengthen the cybersecurity position of the organisation and adjust permissions based on risk assessments.

Preparing for change

AI is set to change the way we work, enhancing productivity and unlocking new opportunities for businesses. As organisations advance on their AI journey, it is important that they take a joined-up approach to the technology.

At Dell Technologies, we’re committed to helping organisations create AI-powered experiences in workplaces across Ireland. From running complex AI workloads on workstations to using day-to-day AI-powered applications on laptops, our extensive range of commercial AI workstations and laptops are tailor-designed to bring organisations and employee productivity into the AI era and unlock the full potential of the technology.

By taking action now, businesses and organisations can create a modern workplace shaped by new AI experiences.

Google Pixel 8a announced

The Google Pixel 8a is here! Powered by their latest Google Tensor G3 chip, it’s equipped with many of the same must-have AI features as Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, like Best Take, Audio Magic Eraser and more. Designed to capture amazing photos, save you time and keep you and your loved ones safe, the Pixel 8a offers unbeatable value starting at €559.

Fun colours and a fresh design
The refined A-Series design feels even better in your hands with rounded edges, a matte back and a polished aluminium frame. Its durable design — which has an IP67 rating — can handle slips, spills and dust, making Pixel 8a the most durable A-Series phone yet. Plus, its new Actua display is 40% brighter than Pixel 7a’s, and the faster 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling smooth.

There’s two new A-series colours: Aloe (a limited-edition colour!) and Bay. Or choose from one of the neutral colour options: Obsidian or Porcelain.. And for the first time ever, there’s a larger storage capacity option at 256 GB, giving you more space for your favourite content.

Amazing photography, made simple
Ranked the best smartphone camera in its category, Pixel 8a features a powerful dual rear camera with a 64-megapixel main lens and a 13-megapixel ultrawide lens. It comes equipped with a 13-megapixel front facing camera as well, with a large field of view to fit even more into your shots. Thanks to Google Tensor G3, Pixel 8a is packed with AI-powered tools to make the most out of your photos and videos:
● Best Take lets you create the group shot you want. uChoose what you think is the best expression for everyone in a series of photos.
● Magic Editor lets you reposition and resize subjects or use presets to make the background
pop — all with just a few taps.
● Audio Magic Eraser easily removes distracting sounds in your videos— like wind, crowds and
other noises — for crisp and clear audio.

Pixel 8a also includes Super Res Zoom up to 8x and features such as Magic Eraser, Night Sight and Photo Unblur. Like every Pixel, Pixel 8a includes Real Tone, to accurately represent everyone’s skin tone in photos and now in videos.

Google AI makes it even easier to get things done
Pixel 8a was designed to help you get more things checked off your to-do list with ease. With features built to help you save time, you can spend more time doing things that matter to you most. Circle to Search is also on Pixel 8a, so you no longer have to switch apps to find the information you are looking for — saving you time. Just use your finger to draw a circle, scribble, or tap an image, text or video to search for what you’re looking at. And AI-powered Pixel Call Assist features — like Call Screen,
Direct My Call, Hold for Me, Clear Calling and more — are all included on the Pixel 8a too.

Want to plan a trip? Maps help you discover hidden gems and create the perfect itinerary. Immerse yourself in your future destination with Immersive View — virtually explore before you even step foot somewhere! And once you arrive, Lens is your window to the world. Snap a photo of a historical landmark to unlock its secrets, or translate a restaurant menu in a flash.

Google Pixel’s At a Glance widget will keep you on track, putting essential information directly on your lock screen. See upcoming events, weather, travel updates, and timely reminders without even unlocking your phone.

Pixel 8a will also introduce Audio Emojis, making your phone calls more expressive and engaging than before. With Audio Emojis, just tap on an emoji to trigger an audio reaction and visual effect. Try using a hand- clap emoji to applaud a job well done or the laughing emoji after telling your best joke.

Next level security
Safety and security are always a top priority. Similar to the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, this phone is built with the latest Google Tensor G3 chip, making it the fastest and most secure Pixel A-Series phone to date. It works with the certified Titan M2 security chip and built-in VPN for additional protection so it’s even more resilient against threats.

And Pixel 8a will be safe and secure thanks to seven years of software support, including security
updates and Android upgrades. Plus you’ll benefit from all the new features and improvements in
ongoing Feature Drops..

Get the Pixel 8a, plus more Pixel devices today The Pixel 8a starts at €559 for the 128GB version and 619 for the 256GB model and pre-orders begin today. Watch out for our review soon.

AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Q

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the general availability of Amazon Q, the most capable generative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant for accelerating software development and leveraging companies’ internal data. Amazon Q not only generates highly accurate code, it also tests, debugs, and has multi-step planning and reasoning capabilities that can transform (e.g., perform java version upgrades) and implement new code generated from developer requests. Amazon Q also makes it easier for employees to get answers to questions across business data such as company policies, product information, business results, code base, employees, and many other topics by connecting to enterprise data repositories to summarize the data logically, analyze trends, and engage in dialog about the data. Today, AWS is also introducing Amazon Q Apps, a new and powerful capability that lets employees build generative AI apps from their company’s data. Employees simply describe the type of app they want, in natural language, and Q Apps will quickly generate an app that accomplishes their desired task, helping them streamline and automate their daily work with ease and efficiency. To learn more about Amazon Q, visit aws.amazon.com/q.

“Amazon Q is the most capable generative AI-powered assistant available today with industry-leading accuracy, advanced agents capabilities, and best-in-class security that helps developers become more productive and helps business users to accelerate decision making,” said Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Artificial Intelligence and Data at AWS. “Since we announced the service at re:Invent, we have been amazed at the productivity gains developers and business users have seen. Early indications signal Amazon Q could help our customers’ employees become more than 80% more productive at their jobs; and with the new features we’re planning on introducing in the future, we think this will only continue to grow.”

Amazon Q Developer

Today, developers tell us that only 30% (or less) of their time is spent on coding, while the rest is spent performing tedious and repetitive tasks. This could be researching best practices from various parts of the web or learning how things work through documentation, forums, and conversations with colleagues. Developers also have to manage infrastructure and resources, troubleshoot and resolve errors, and understand operating costs. When they switch projects, they have to spend time learning the existing code base to understand its programming logic. Finally, there is all the work of testing and refactoring code, upgrading applications, debugging and optimization, and ensuring security by having to carry out vulnerability scanning and applying appropriate security fixes in a timely fashion. Companies want to empower their developers to spend less time on this coding muck and more time on creating unique experiences for their end users, while being able to deploy faster.

Q assists developers and IT professionals (IT pros) with all of their tasks—from coding, testing, and upgrading applications, to troubleshooting, performing security scanning and fixes, and optimizing AWS resources. Amazon Q delivers advanced and tailored generative AI capabilities, including:

  • Most accurate coding recommendations: Amazon Q helps developers build faster and more securely by generating code suggestions and recommendations in near real time. Customers such as Blackberry, BT Group, and Toyota are already using Q to increase developer productivity and speed up innovation in their organizations. Amazon Q Developer has the highest reported code acceptance rates in the industry, for assistants that perform multi-line code suggestions, with BT Group recently sharing that they accepted 37% of Q’s code suggestions and National Australia Bank reporting 50% acceptance rates. Q also has a powerful customization capability that securely leverages a customer’s internal code base to provide more relevant and useful code recommendations. With this capability, Q is an expert on your code and provides recommendations that are more relevant to save even more time. Q keeps customizations completely private, and the underlying FM does not use them for training, protecting customers’ valuable intellectual property.
  • Amazon Q Developer Agents: Q has a unique capability, called agents, which can autonomously perform a range of tasks–everything from implementing features, documenting, and refactoring code, to performing software upgrades. Developers can simply ask Amazon Q to implement an application feature (such as asking it to create an “add to favorites” feature in a social sharing app), and the agent will analyze their existing application code and generate a step-by-step implementation plan. Developers can collaborate with the agent to review and iterate on the plan before the agent implements it, connecting multiple steps together and applying updates across source files, code blocks, and test suites. Carrying out these tasks, Q has achieved the highest scores of any software development assistant available today, scoring 13.4% on the SWE-Bench Leaderboard and 20.5% on the SWE-Bench Leaderboard (Lite), a dataset that benchmarks coding capabilities.

To save customers months, even years, of time upgrading applications, Q can also automate and manage the entire upgrade process–with Java conversions available today and .Net conversions coming soon to help people move from Windows to Linux. In their IDE, developers simply ask Amazon Q to “transform” their project and the agent analyzes application source code, generates new code in the target language or version, executes tests, and completes all code changes. A five-person team at Amazon used Q to upgrade more than 1,000 production applications from Java 8 to Java 17 in just two days (the average time per application was less than 10 minutes), saving months of time, and improving application performance–previously, many of these applications would each take a couple of days to upgrade.

  • Best-in-class security vulnerability scanning and remediation: Q scans code for hard-to-detect vulnerabilities, such as exposed credentials and log injection. With a single click, Q automatically suggests remediations tailored to the application code, allowing developers to quickly accept fixes with confidence. Q’s security scanning capabilities outperform leading publicly benchmarkable tools on detection across most of the popular programming languages, helping to significantly improve the security and code quality of a developer’s application.
  • Q is an expert on AWS and optimizing your AWS environment: Amazon Q Developer is an expert on AWS and is in the console to help IT pros optimize their cloud environments, as well as diagnose and resolve errors and networking issues, select instances, optimize structured query language (SQL) queries, extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipelines, and provide guidance on architectural best practices. To further help customers optimize their cloud environments, today Amazon Q Developer includes a new feature that helps customers list their AWS account resources, configurations, and analyze billing information and trends, making it easier for them to manage their accounts. For example, IT pros can simply ask, “What instances are currently running in US East 1?” or “What’s my S3 bucket encryption?” or “What were my EC2 costs by region last month?” and Amazon Q Developer will list the resources and details in a summarized answer with links to learn more.

 

Amazon Q’s conversational interface is available wherever it is needed—in the AWS Console, in Slack, or in IDEs, including Visual Studio Code and JetBrains–to give developers the ability to use the conversational experience of Q within their favorite software development solutions. To extend the Q experience to more places developers work, AWS is announcing new partner extensions from Datadog and Wiz, and an integration with GitLab Duo that will offer joint customers a unified interface—whether working in AWS or GitLab.  By integrating Amazon Q’s generative AI capabilities with solutions that developers know, use, and trust, developers can update and create software faster.

Amazon Q Business

Organizations possess vast amounts of data spread across multiple documents, systems, and applications. Employees across every organization and department spend hours every week searching internal sources for information, piecing together analyses, writing reports, building presentations, gathering insights from dashboards, and adapting content for different audiences. Generative AI can help solve these challenges. However, the offerings available today are not connected to business data or internal resources and are not built from the ground up with security in mind. Because of these barriers, many organizations cannot safely tap into the full potential of generative AI.

Q Business is a generative AI–powered assistant that can answer questions, provide summaries, generate content, and securely complete tasks based on data and information in your enterprise systems. It empowers employees to be more creative, data-driven, efficient, prepared, and productive:

  • Q unites more data sources than any other generative AI assistant available today: Amazon Q Business easily and securely connects to 40+ commonly used business tools, such as wikis, intranets, Atlassian, Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)–more than any other generative AI assistant available today. Simply point Q at your enterprise data repositories, and it will search all of your data, summarize logically, analyze trends, and engage in dialog with end users about the data. This helps business users to access all of their data, no matter where it resides in their organization.
  • Built from the ground up with security and privacy in mind: Amazon Q Business seamlessly integrates with a customer’s existing identities, roles, and access permissions to personalize the interactions for each individual user, while maintaining the highest levels of security. It generates accurate responses based on enterprise information, and customers can restrict sensitive topics, block keywords, and filter out inappropriate content. Q also does not use customer content to train the underlying models for anybody else. Amazon Q Business outperforms all published results for other assistants on correctness, truthfulness, and helpfulness for general Q&A (using the MultiHop-RAG dataset), as well as industries like finance (using a FiQA dataset sample) and technology (using a LoTTE dataset sample).
  • Inventive generative BI allows analysts to build detailed dashboards in minutes and business users to get insights fast: Amazon Q brings its advanced generative AI technology to Amazon QuickSight, AWS’s unified Business Intelligence (BI) service built for the cloud. With Amazon Q in QuickSight, customers get a Generative BI assistant that allows business analysts to use natural language to build BI dashboards in minutes and easily create visualizations and complex calculations. It is also the only BI product where business users can get AI-driven executive summaries of dashboards, ask questions of data beyond what is presented in the dashboards, and create detailed and customizable data stories highlighting key insights, trends, and drivers. Business users can ask to “build a story about how the business has changed over the last month for a business review with leadership;” and in seconds, Amazon Q creates a narrative with specific insights and supporting visuals, including specific ideas of how to improve the business. Users can choose to layout the content produced by Q in an easy to share document or presentation where they can customize text, images, and themes, and use Amazon Q to rewrite and improve the text.
  • First-of-its-kind capability that helps every employee go from conversation to generative AI-powered app in seconds: Today, AWS is announcing the new Amazon Q Apps capability (in preview). Amazon Q Apps allows employees to easily and quickly create generative AI-powered apps based on their company data, without requiring any prior coding experience. With Q Apps, employees simply describe the app they want, in natural language, or they can take an existing conversation where Amazon Q Business helped them solve a problem, and with one click, Q will instantly generate an app that accomplishes their desired task that can be easily shared across their organization.

For example, creating employee onboarding plans for new recruits can be a long and laborious process. They require many hours of searching through different data stores and documents to find the appropriate content for the new employee; and often, the content is out of date or not specific enough to their role. With Q, an HR professional could simply describe they want an app that will create an onboarding plan for a new employee that utilizes the company’s existing best practices, and has an input field for employee ID that personalizes the onboarding plan to their role by drawing from internal data sources specific to their job family.  In a matter of seconds, Amazon Q Apps will build an app that can automatically generate a personalized onboarding plan tailored to the employee, their role, and the department using the latest best practices. The HR professional can then share the app with hiring managers across the company to instantly build personalized onboarding plans for their own teams.  Now, with Amazon Q Apps, business users can easily, quickly, and securely build an app based on enterprise information to improve their work productivity.

What Amazon Q customers and partners are saying

GoDaddy helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. “Amazon Q in QuickSight allows us to ask our data contextual business questions without having to constantly rely on ad-hoc dashboards. For example, now we can much more easily discover and drill into anomalies in business performance across the company,” said Ed Sarausad, senior director, Data & Analytics, at GoDaddy. “This shift not only streamlines our processes, but also elevates our analytical capabilities. What excites us most is the opportunity to unlock insights with profound, previously unasked questions. That allows us to respond more swiftly and with greater depth, enhancing our data learning journey.”

National Australia Bank is one of the largest financial institutions in Australia. “At NAB, teams across the bank are excited about how generative AI can transform our work, and we’ve found a great solution in Amazon Q Developer, a powerful generative AI-powered tool for our engineers and developers,” said Andrew Brydon, executive chief engineer at National Australia Bank. “The tool has seamlessly integrated advanced generative algorithms and tools into our development process, delivering unparalleled benefits like completing tasks faster, increasing productivity, and minimizing repetitive actions. So far, our developers have accepted 50% of the code suggestions made by Amazon Q Developer, and that number continues to increase as we scale. We look forward to seeing how Amazon Q Developer will continue to empower and inspire our engineers to upskill their technical expertise, delivering better service for customers.”

Netsmart is a leading technology provider for community-based care. “The demand for community-based care has grown exponentially, and Amazon Q Developer is helping us meet that demand by fueling our efficiency and innovation,” said Paul Snider, vice president of engineering at Netsmart. “Amazon Q Developer can transform the way our engineering team approaches research, design, and coding. Since using Amazon Q Developer, our team has seen a strong code suggestion acceptance rate of 35%. This has allowed our engineers to efficiently generate high-quality code and documentation, implement new features, which can accelerate development cycles, and significantly reduce manual effort. We are excited about the impact of Amazon Q Developer on our development processes.”

Novacomp provides a diverse range of IT products and services while specializing in Quality Assurance Automation, Software Testing services and Nearshore Outsourcing. “Modernizing applications at Novacomp has historically been a time-consuming task that is often de-prioritized against other development initiatives,” said Gerardo Arroyo, CTO of Novacomp. “Our team turned to Amazon Q Code Transformation to help upgrade a project running in Java 8 to Java 17 with over 10,000 lines of code. This is a task that would typically take an expert over two weeks to manually complete, but Amazon Q seamlessly modernized our project in a matter of minutes. Since adopting Amazon Q across our organization, we have realized a 60% decrease in average in our tech debt.”

Persistent Systems is a multi-national technology services company that builds software that drives digital transformation. “Amazon Q Apps has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach generative AI,” said Praveen Bhadada, head of generative AI at Persistent Systems. “We can now empower everyone on the team to quickly build and integrate applications with a no-code approach, using enterprise data sources while carefully aligning with existing identities, roles, and authorization levels.”

Smartsheet is an enterprise software as a service offering for collaboration and work management. “Amazon Q Business is streamlining knowledge management and accelerating employee productivity at Smartsheet,” said Bani Bedi, senior vice president, corporate development and strategy at Smartsheet. “Previously, it was too difficult for our 3,300 employees to find the information they needed across public help documents, training courses, and hundreds of all-employee Slack help channels. We have consolidated our organizational knowledge into a single AI engine to give our workforce immediate answers, significantly boosting employee productivity. Now, employees can simply tag @AskMe in any Slack channel, ask a question, and Amazon Q will instantly give them an answer. Our CEO uses Amazon Q Business to obtain answers and conduct research, getting the information that he needs without interrupting an employee’s workflow. We accomplished all of this in a couple of weeks and without writing a single line of code, using our existing identity system. Additionally, our engineering teams use Amazon Q to summarize incident statuses, identify action items, access API documentation, and troubleshoot technical issues more efficiently, so they can focus on delivering exceptional products to our customers.”

Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization. “Together with AWS, we’re leveraging generative AI to help our people work more efficiently and deliver superior digital experiences to our clients,” said Laura Money, EVP & chief information and technology innovation officer at Sun Life. “Adopting Amazon Q Apps will enable our teams to build secure and seamless solutions that create value and differentiation across our business. For example, empowering our teams with access to Amazon Q in just a few clicks will streamline the creation and sharing of applications tailored to their respective needs.”

Dell Technologies helps ignite Irish start-up growth with inaugural Powering AI event

Dell Technologies hosted the inaugural Powering AI event in Dublin this week bringing together leaders from across Ireland’s start-up and scale-up community to explore the key ingredients needed to power their AI journey and unlock new growth opportunities.

Held in partnership with Scale Ireland over 50 founders, industry leaders and AI experts came together at the Digital Hub in Dublin to discuss the opportunities presented by Generative AI (GenAI) and the obstacles they need to overcome to embrace this technology in their organisation.

The first Powering AI event featured a number of speakers including Catherine Doyle, Managing Director, Dell Technologies in Ireland; Brian Caufield, Chair, Scale Ireland, Dr. Patricia Scanlon, Ireland’s AI Ambassador & Chair of AI Advisory Council; Dr. Paul Byrnes, CEO, Mavarick; Andreea Wade, VP & Product Strategy at iCIMS, and Ivor Buckley, Field CTO at Dell Technologies Ireland.

This comes as Dell Technologies unveiled its Innovation Catalysts Study which revealed that 75% of organisations in Ireland have begun implementing Generative AI. 47% cite GenAI’s transformative potential to enhance the customer experience while 42% believe it has significant potential to unlock productivity. However, 95% are experiencing data management challenges as they look to adopt GenAI.

Highlighting the significance of the inaugural gathering Catherine Doyle, Managing Director at Dell Technologies in Ireland said: “As the clear leader in computing and storage, Dell is helping to power AI for businesses and organisations across Ireland. That’s why we’re delighted to host the inaugural Powering AI event which is focused on how GenAI can enable Ireland’s vibrant start-up community to grow and scale-up their success.

 “Due to their agility and the fact many were born in the Cloud, start-ups and scale-ups are uniquely positioned to adopt GenAI at speed. By bringing together industry leaders, AI experts and founders, we can highlight the ingredients that will power the AI journey of our thriving start-up community and ensure in time that they can compete internationally.”

Nine in 10 Irish execs expect Gen AI chatbots to have an impact on their organisation’s business processes

Nine in 10 (90%) Irish executives anticipate a medium to high impact to their organisation’s business processes in the next three years as a direct result of generative AI chatbots, with almost two in five (39%) reporting it as transformational change, according to Accenture’s annual Technology Vision Report for 2024.

Accenture’s Technology Vision 2024: “Human by Design: How AI Unleashes the Next Level of Human Potential”, which is run across 20 countries and 21 industries, revealed that 97% of Irish executives agree that the capabilities of AI are expanding, moving from assisting to acting independently. Almost all, 99%, of executives agree that making technology “more human” will massively expand the opportunities of every industry.

The findings reveal that while Ireland is making strides alongside its global counterparts when it comes to technologies such as AI and Gen AI, Irish businesses have been slower to adopt other technologies and trends featured in the report, such as spatial computing and body sensing technologies. While 84% of Irish executives agree that spatial computing will be used to build enriching experiences, providing a realistic alternative or enhancement to in-person experiences, a higher 92% globally believe this to be the case.

Consumers are even further behind in terms of adopting spatial computing, with only 36% saying that they would be interested in it to learn and develop new skills and less than three in 10 (29%) interested in using it to shop, compared to an only slightly higher 33% globally. Spatial computing blends digital content with the physical world in natural way. Virtual reality (VR) is a type of spatial computing.

When it comes to body sensing technologies, while it is clear that the technology has the capability to be transformative, with AI-powered wearables, brain-sensing neurotech and eye and movement tracking, there is some concern around the ethics. 66% of Irish consumers agree that in order to gain trust, organisations will need to develop responsible guidelines on biometric privacy and neurotech ethics and standards.

Austin Boyle, Head of Technology at Accenture in Ireland commented on the findings: “Irish businesses have been leveraging AI at scale for some time now and continue to see its value as it becomes even more “human”. That said, what we are seeing amongst our clients, is that as a country we are still behind when it comes to the adoption of cloud in Ireland, which in turn is inhibiting the integration of other innovative technologies, including Gen AI.

“By fully adopting cloud and Gen AI, we can lay the foundations for the next wave of AI technologies that can be leveraged by Irish businesses, which include spatial computing and body sensing technologies. Globally, spatial computing mediums have already begun to close the physical-digital divide to enable simultaneous activities in multiple spaces and body sensing technologies are raising the bar when it comes to understanding people’s behaviours and intentions, making it particularly useful for customer service of the future.

“In order to gain a competitive advantage, Irish businesses must prioritise integration and adoption early and receive training from the C-suite down, to fully capitalise on the new technologies which have the potential to completely revolutionise Irish business. We are excited to see the opportunities that will present themselves once organsations heed to this.”

Further findings from Accenture’s Technology Vision Report 2024 revealed:

  • 99% of Irish executives agree that generative AI will compel their organisation to modernise its technology architecture.
  • 98% of Irish executives agree that AI agents will begin to collaborate with other agents to accomplish organisational tasks.
  • 99% of Irish executives agree that leveraging AI agent ecosystems will be a significant opportunity for their organisation in the next 3 years.
  • 100% of Irish executives agree that the way we interact with data will change, from searching for information to asking questions and receiving direct advice and answers.

The 5 key trends in digital transformation for 2024: what companies need to know

In a world where technology is developing at an incredible pace, digital transformation is not just a trend but a necessity for every company that wants to remain competitive. Experts from the consulting company Avenga have identified five key trends that will shape the business landscape in the near future.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to lead the way in digital transformation, transforming industries and redefining business capabilities. These technologies automate routine tasks and open up new horizons for innovation and service personalization. In particular, advanced data analytics allows for processing and analyzing huge volumes of data faster and more accurately than ever before. Personalization of the customer experience enables companies to create individualized offers for each customer, optimize the customer journey, and improve service. In turn, automation and process optimization not only increase enterprise efficiency but also significantly reduce the likelihood of errors. 

 

Moreover, artificial intelligence also improves decision-making by providing organizations with deep and accurate analytical data for making more informed decisions. According to specialists from the leading digital transformation consulting company Avenga, a prominent example of successful AI and machine learning application is Amazon. The company uses artificial intelligence to personalize product recommendations for its customers. More specifically, machine learning systems analyze purchase history, search queries, and user behavior on the website to suggest the most relevant products and enhance the customer experience.

Process Automation and Robotics

Process automation and robotics are changing traditional approaches to business and production management. These technologies guarantee efficiency and cost reduction, increased accuracy and reliability of task execution, improved working conditions, integration with artificial intelligence, and the development of intelligent production. For example, Toyota has implemented robots on its production lines to automate assembly operations. This has increased productivity, reduced the likelihood of errors, and improved workplace safety for employees.

Cloud Technologies and Big Data

According to our interviewees, cloud technologies and big data analytics are the most significant trends in digital transformation, offering enterprises new ways to store, process, and analyze information to improve decision-making and business operations. The scalability and flexibility of cloud solutions allow companies to amplify their IT resources according to current needs, providing agility and cost optimization. Access to advanced analytical tools enables companies to better understand customer needs, optimize processes, and make informed strategic decisions. 

Improving collaboration and communication contributes to better interaction between teams, regardless of their geographical location. Cloud technologies also offer advanced cybersecurity solutions, helping protect valuable data from external threats. Importantly, these technologies are available to companies of all sizes, not just large corporations. 

Among successful examples of implementing this trend is Netflix. The company uses cloud computing and Big Data analytics to store and process huge volumes of video content, as well as to analyze user preferences and optimize its streaming service.

Cybersecurity

In the era of digital transformation, cybersecurity is a top priority for companies of all levels and industries. Hackers constantly refine their methods, using increasingly sophisticated ways to gain unauthorized access to corporate resources. Modern cybersecurity solutions aim to create integrated systems that can automatically detect, analyze, and respond to potential threats. Training employees in the principles and basics of cybersecurity becomes a necessity, as many attacks begin with social engineering or phishing. 

Moreover, compliance with regulatory requirements and standards in cybersecurity, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, not only protects the company from fines but also enhances its business reputation. Developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy includes regular audits, monitoring, threat analysis, and rapid incident response. For example, CyberArk provides cybersecurity solutions, specializing in privileged access management and protection against internal threats. Their products protect critical assets and comply with compliance requirements.

Sustainable Development and Social Responsibility

Sustainable development and social responsibility are an integral part of the digital transformation strategy for companies, as consumers and investors increasingly choose brands that demonstrate care for social and environmental issues. A good example is Unilever, which has launched a sustainable development program to minimize its environmental footprint and improve the social well-being of the communities with which it interacts. The program specifically focuses on reducing waste in production, increasing energy efficiency, and supporting local farmers.

It is important to understand that digital transformation is not a one-time project but a continuous process that requires constant adaptation and innovation. The five key trends outlined by the experts from the consulting company Avenga emphasize the need for companies to be flexible, secure, innovative, and socially responsible in their approach to digital change. Understanding and embracing these trends will allow organizations not only to survive but also to thrive in a rapidly changing and increasingly digital world.

 

Salesforce Report: 95% of service professionals in Ireland using AI say it saves them time

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, today released the new State of Service report, sharing insights from over 5,500 service professionals across 30 countries — including 100 from Ireland.

The report covers the priorities, challenges, and strategies shaping customer service, including how service teams are tapping AI and data to increase revenue, efficiency, and customer satisfaction amid rising customer expectations.

Key insights from the research include:

  • Organisations Lean into AI to Boost Efficiencies. To scale service without sacrificing quality, organisations are increasingly turning to AI.
    • 95% of service professionals in Ireland using AI say it saves them time
    • 73% of service organisations in Ireland are using or evaluating AI
    • 85% of service organisations in Ireland plan to increase AI investments this year
    • Top 3 service use cases for AI in Ireland: Customer-facing intelligent assistants, agent-facing intelligent assistants and service responses.

  • Service Organisations Double-Down on Revenue Generation. The trend of viewing service as a revenue driver instead of a cost centre is accelerating, and service teams are making investments to scale.
    • 83% of organisations in Ireland expect service to contribute more revenue this year
    • 68% of service organisations in Ireland expect more budget this year
    • 75% of service organisations in Ireland expect more headcount this year

  • Escalating Demands Pressure Service Teams. As customer expectations rise, service agents are feeling the squeeze.
    • Service agents in Ireland spend an average of just 33% of their time helping customers
    • 78% of service organisations in Ireland expect higher case volume next year
    • 90% of service professionals in Ireland say customers are more demanding than they used to be

  • Service Boosts Its Data Capabilities. Service organisations are ramping up their data integration efforts to fuel human agents and AI systems.
    • 93% of service professionals in Ireland say better access to data from other teams would improve support
    • 84% of service organisations in Ireland are increasing investment in data integration this year

“The power of data and AI, is enabling Irish service and field service teams to be more proactive and productive,“ said Paul O’ Sullivan, SVP Solution Engineering and CTO Salesforce UKI.

“We’re seeing a strategic shift within businesses, with teams deflecting more issues with smarter self-service, and devoting more time and energy to generating revenue.”

Methodology
Salesforce conducted a double-anonymous survey of over 5,500 service professionals between December 8, 2023, and January 22, 2024. Respondents were sourced from 30 countries and roles including service operations, service agents, mobile workers, service managers/directors, and service leadership/head of service.

Additional methodology and survey demographic details can be found in the report.

For more information:

Google.org announces €500,000 in funding to improve access to AI in Ireland

Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google is today making €500,000 in grants available to help improve access to AI in Ireland – with a focus on those in vulnerable and underserved communities. As part of the AI Opportunity Initiative, funding from Google.org will support training and skills for workers who are most likely to be impacted by workplace transitions brought on by AI.

Developed in collaboration with the Centre for Public Impact, Google.org’s AI Opportunity Fund, is making up to €500,000  in grants and sub-grants available in Ireland. Google is seeking applications through an open call from social enterprises and nonprofits in Ireland who can help reach those people most likely to benefit from this training – equipping workers here with the skills they need to avoid being left behind.

Selected organisations will receive bespoke training for their beneficiaries on foundational AI with extensive guidance and wraparound support. In addition, cash grants will be offered to support successful applicants, ensuring workers can attend the training.

Cera Ward, Managing Director, Large Customer Sales, Google Ireland, said:

“AI has the potential to improve people’s  lives, and to help solve some of our most pressing societal challenges. We’re pursuing AI boldly and responsibly to ensure its benefits are available to everyone and that accessibility enhances our society – not exacerbates existing inequalities.  The AI Opportunity Fund will help people in Ireland to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence around AI, ensuring that no one is left behind.”

The application window is open. Information and details on the Google.org landing page: https://aiopportunityfund.withgoogle.com/