Kyndryl's Wiem Sabbagh: "In the future, generative AI will be infused across all layers of business"

"The influence of AI is already broad and profound – and this will only grow as the technology becomes more engrained in society," Wiem Sabbagh, Director, Global Leader of Data & AI Consult at Kyndryl suggests.

Sabbagh spoke to CBN after talking to audiences at the 3rd CITEA Digital Cyprus Conference in Nicosia about ‘How to innovate and drive value with generative AI.’

Among other things, Sabbagh told the portal, "AI is being applied to transform industries by augmenting the capabilities of human agents in customer contact centers and enhancing engagement across various sectors."

The expert also told CBN why she anticipates generative AI will be infused across all layers of business in the future.

She outlined the most common misconceptions surrounding this new technology, while also sharing some of the ways it is being harnessed by Kyndryl in a range of products and services.

Your presentation at the recent 3rd CITEA Digital Cyprus Conference was entitled ‘How to innovate and drive value with generative AI.’ Briefly, can you tell us more about how AI can create added value for businesses?

Yes. In Kyndryl’s recent survey, a staggering 96% of the companies responded that they are already exploring and investing in generative AI initiatives – recognizing its tremendous potential. In my presentation at the conference, I discussed how generative AI is significantly impacting businesses across multiple dimensions in four key areas. First, generative AI can enhance employee productivity by automating routine tasks, like document summarization, or providing support through virtual assistants. Second, it can improve customer experiences by enabling hyper-personalization and sophisticated virtual interactions. Third, the technology can power business insights by facilitating easier access to data-driven insights through natural language processing and automated dashboard generation. Fourth, generative AI can increase IT operations efficiency by aiding in the analysis of unstructured data, assisting agents with automated responses, summarizing conversations and accelerating root cause analysis processes.

More generally, AI has captured public attention, far beyond the tech sector. What do you consider to be some of the most prevalent misconceptions surrounding this new technology?

Despite its rapid adoption and potential, generative AI is surrounded by misconceptions. Generative AI is just the tip of the iceberg, as it only represents the beginning of what is possible with all types of AI. One of the most prevalent misconceptions surrounding generative AI is that the input isn’t as important as the output. However, the effectiveness of generative AI – and the insights it produces – is heavily dependent on the quality of the underlying data the technology is fed. Without robust data foundations, which includes data governance, data quality and a secure, modern architecture, it is challenging to effectively scale generative AI solutions and trust its insights. Additionally, generative AI is not a cure-all for every business issue, and if it’s viewed as such it can be extremely costly without delivering a return on investment. To combat this, companies need to carefully identify use cases where generative AI solutions can be applied effectively to truly add business value.

On a more positive note and based on your experience and current work with clients, what are some of the ways AI already has a positive impact on businesses and individuals? How do you believe this will further develop in the future?

The influence of AI is already broad and profound – and this will only grow as the technology becomes more engrained in society. AI is being applied to transform industries by augmenting the capabilities of human agents in customer contact centers and enhancing engagement across various sectors.

One specific example, Kyndryl supported iHub solutions, a Singapore-based smart warehouse, contract logistics and e-commerce fulfillment services provider in launching its first generative AI pilot to improve customer service by cutting down response times from hours to seconds.

In the future, I anticipate generative AI will be infused across all layers of business—from applications and data to infrastructure. This pervasive integration will require a trusted partner to provide the necessary orchestration and management to ensure that generative AI solutions seamlessly interact with existing business environments and deliver sustained value at scale.

Specifically regarding Kyndryl, can you tell us more about the company’s Data & AI products and services? Are these all also available in Cyprus at this time?

Kyndryl is deeply involved in managing mission-critical systems and data and utilizing AI to enhance these core functionalities. Kyndryl Bridge, our integrated AIOps platform, has been enriched with AI to better serve customers with enhanced visibility across their technology estates and actionable insights.

Kyndryl also engages with customers at every stage of their AI journey. Beginning with discovery workshops using Kyndryl Vital, our co-creation experience, to identify and prioritize generative AI use cases, followed by proof-of-concept demonstrations to highlight the business value. In addition, Kyndryl is supporting customers in adopting an enterprise-grade generative AI approach by leveraging the Kyndryl Generative AI Navigator, our flagship IP, and helping them advance to the production phase. We also help customers be ready with the right foundations: data strategy, governance and security, modern architecture and platform, data observability; and having a solid infrastructure in place.

Lastly, Kyndryl’s robust alliance ecosystem, like those with Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud and Nvidia, supports strong co-innovation by bringing in the necessary services, expertise and tools to develop the best solution to solve customers’ business problems.

All Kyndryl’s services and solutions are available in Cyprus, supported by our onshore and nearshore capabilities.