Nextshift 1404: The artificial intelligence wave has started with people, managers will stay under this wave if they procrastinate.

The third “NextShift” event was held with the presence of senior technology managers, startup founders and data specialists; This year’s event, which is more than a showcase of technological achievements, was a mirror of a worrying gap: the gap between the acceleration of artificial intelligence development and the resistance of the management structure of Iranian businesses.

Artificial intelligence has changed three things: work, learn and win

Taking a broad look at the effects of artificial intelligence, Keyvan Mohitmafi, the CEO of Diginext, considered this technology to be a changer of three things: the way of working, the way of learning and the way of winning. He emphasized that artificial intelligence has forced us to rethink the meaning of work and has even transformed the learning process; In such a way that ignoring it only leaves the “illusion of knowledge”. Referring to the experience of Google, Mohitmafi said that a company that had talent, data and infrastructure at the same time, due to delay in decision-making, remained under the wave of fresh competitors, and this example shows that the wave of artificial intelligence does not wait for anyone. From his point of view, the future of companies does not depend on the size of the organization, nor on the number of human resources, but on the amount of their investment in artificial intelligence today.

Hadi Moradi, Research Vice President of Tehran University, presented a more balanced picture of the capacity and limitations of this technology. He said that artificial intelligence plays a decisive role in pattern recognition, personalization of services, automation, and speeding up research, but it still has a serious weakness in understanding reality, moral analysis, and decision-making in complex situations, and without human supervision and expert teams, it can produce misleading outputs. Referring to Elon Musk’s prediction, Moradi noted that in the next 10 to 20 years, “working” will become more of a choice, and only those who have effective access to artificial intelligence tools will be able to quit working. He concluded that if we do not build a model and team within organizations today, tomorrow we will have to rely on external services for survival.

Human power is the most important layer of success in artificial intelligence

Hamidreza Soleimani, Vice President of Tepsi Technology and Product, further emphasized that human power is the deepest layer of success in artificial intelligence. He warned that focusing on “force adjustment” in the face of the wave of artificial intelligence is a strategic mistake, because a large number of technical and data experts are needed to design models, build data centers, launch suggestion systems and process huge volumes of data. Soleimani explained that having a mountain of data is not enough; Data cleaning, value addition and maintenance are more important. Referring to 9 years of Tepsi’s investment in data centers and the launch of “Tepsicloud”, he said that if an organization is unable to provide storage, processing, CPU and GPU infrastructure, it is better to use cloud services so as not to lose the possibility of entering the artificial intelligence space.

Sadegh Sepandarand, General Manager of Retail Banking and Small Businesses of National Bank, offered a more managerial summary and said that artificial intelligence is not “dangerous” in itself; The problem is how to use it. He enumerated three prerequisites for organizations to enter this field professionally: a solid cultural foundation in which technology plays an accelerating role, the formation of a data-oriented culture, and step-by-step investment instead of episodic and sectional movements. Sepandarand noted that a good strategy is not just a list of things to do, but just as much about what not to do. Emphasizing that artificial intelligence is not a guarantee of “bread and water” for anyone, he said that probably in the economic future, it will create a new place for those who enter this field earlier and smarter, and many successful strategies will come out of trial and error, not conservatism.

Artificial intelligence is out of the hands of managers; It came into the hands of the people

In another part of the event, Nima Namdari, the CEO of Karnameh, pointed out an important shift: artificial intelligence is no longer a tool for managers, but has been put in the hands of ordinary users. He said that artificial intelligence services have changed from a B2B product to fully B2C services, and now the expectations of users are transferred to businesses without any intermediaries. According to Namdari, the biggest obstacle to transformation is inside organizations; A generation of middle and senior managers who are not comfortable with new technologies, and this resistance has become the heel of the evolution of artificial intelligence in Iranian businesses. He emphasized that the real wave of artificial intelligence value creation will take place in industries that have not yet been digitized; Traditional industries that are hungry for data and automation, and their market size is several times larger than the consumer technology market.

Hamid Mahmoodzadeh, CEO of Didar, focusing on the link between artificial intelligence and human power, described “clean data” as the oxygen of artificial intelligence projects and said that the smallest project in this field is doomed to failure without healthy data. He explained that this company has entered the field of artificial intelligence by building the “Aida” robot; A robot that is supposed to take over some of the repetitive and low-value roles in the organization with less cost and more efficiency. Mahmoudzadeh warned that the wave of automation will spread in Iran sooner or later, and organizations that do not think about their data infrastructure today, will not be able to actually use artificial intelligence tomorrow.

Bahare Sharifion, CEO of Cespas Holding, narrated the three-year experience of this group in using artificial intelligence in two ways: solving internal problems and building new businesses. He said that the most important lesson of these years is that if the problem is not defined correctly, the output of artificial intelligence is “nothing”. According to him, many organizations go to artificial intelligence just to show off and claim transformation, and spend the budget on projects that do not solve a real problem. Sharifion introduced an example of a real application: “drill.ai”; A product based on artificial intelligence to optimize drilling in the oil and gas industry, where the smallest error can cost millions of tomans. He also noted that small businesses have a better chance to quickly adapt to this new paradigm due to their agility, while the larger the organization, the slower the pace of change.

All in all, this year’s NextShift presented a clear picture of the future of Iranian businesses: a future in which conversation with artificial intelligence replaces traditional searches, managers must overcome fear in order not to fall behind, robots enter organizations, clean data determines the fate of projects, and capable human resources are the most important layer of success.
The big opportunity is behind the door of organizations;
The question is: Who dares to open the door first?