Generative AI Can Be Like an Expert in Your Pocket, Says Industry Expert

Generative AI has the potential to disrupt industry, predicts David Yanez, CEO and founder of Andonix. He sees generative AI being used as a company’s copilot, or digital brain. “That copilot is like a mentor or an expert in your pocket,” he told Design News. “Now you can have this brain learning from a very specific process, from a very specific machine, for a specific company,” he said. 

“That is the beginning of something really disruptive; when that brain becomes an expert in your company, becomes an expert in a function, that is what is going to grow and transform,” he added. “I think we’re looking at in 10 years that’s going to enable a whole new industry and I think it could be higher, larger, bigger than the Internet boom era.”

Yanez stressed that generative AI will not replace human decision-making but instead can augment it. “The digital brain can fast-track access to information, solutions, or alternatives,” he said, noting that in any given industry, a worker can spend up to three days of a five-day work week just solving problems. “Now imagine, with this digital expert, it can cut that by half easily, and it will return so much time to the worker so they can focus on something more meaningful, and that could be more fulfilling, and also have more value to the company,” he said. “That’s the vision behind the digital brain.”

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For those fearful of possible harmful effects of generative AI, Yanez said that, with proper regulation, there is no need to worry. “If we have regulation, which is coming, if we have design guidelines, if we have boundaries of what AI is going to be capable of doing and what is off limits, that is all very feasible,” he said.

Companies should start thinking about ways they can implement generative AI into their business models now, Yanez said. “This is the type of inflection point we see in our economy today that will literally say ‘whoever didn't get into this megatrend of generative artificial intelligence is going to be out of business by the end of the decade,’” he said. “That's the prediction, and not just by me, but by many CEOs.” 

Manufacturers can start taking advantage of generative AI technology by first understanding what it is, Yanez said. “The best way to expose people, companies, and organizations to generative AI is [by using] what is called prompt engineering, which is just a fancy term that tells you, teaches you, how to talk to AI, how to ask, how to command AI,” he explained. “That will be the best way to generate the best ideas on how we can use these in a company.”

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The second way to start incorporating generative AI is to find a safe area to implement a copilot and experiment with it, Yanez said. It is safest to begin with something that is not proprietary. “Start building that copilot that is expert in your company,” he stressed. “Start slowly and learn how it works, and then based on these two steps, then you can start building little blocks on how to use this brain to automate this process.”

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Yanez likened it to building a Web site 20 years ago, when companies would add things like search buttons and checkout buttons. “This is the same thing, just add things that make sense and are valuable for the business that help people do faster, simpler, better. This is just the beginning and that’s how you start,” he concluded.