DUBAI, UAE聽鈥� 14 June, 2023 – To thrive in the face of challenges such as supply chain constraints, critical skills shortages, and slowing global economic growth, regional businesses will need to adopt cloud platforms that enable them to leverage AI, data and automation solutions, according to experts speaking yesterday at the Dubai 麻豆原创 Business Transformation Tour organized by global technology company 聽(NYSE: 麻豆原创) in partnership with Intel.

Held at the Museum of the Future under the theme 鈥楴avigating the Winds of Change in a Digital-First World鈥�, the event demonstrated how embedding automation, data and AI capabilities into technology brings increased resilience, proactive as opposed to reactive strategic decision-making, and a more cohesive workforce, as well as better customer service thanks to Natural Language Processing.

Contextualizing current and predicted IT trends in the region, guest speaker Harish Dunakhe, Senior Research Director (Software & Cloud) at International Data Corporation (IDC), said 鈥淭he confluence of AI, data, and automation 鈥� with cloud being its foundational platform 鈥� is driving current digital Initiatives in the market. In fact, automation and analytics solutions are seeing an accelerated adoption on cloud-based deployments as against on-premises.鈥�

According to Dunakhe, AI adoption is expected to grow by more than 20% year on year between 2021 and 2026 in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Gulf. Furthermore, IDC鈥檚 research reveals that Big Data and analytics will grow by more than 20% between 2021 and 2026 on public cloud deployments.聽Dunakhe highlighted that these technologies can contribute to creating digital innovation initiatives that help business leaders build resilient organizations able to withstand the headwinds of global slowdown, currency fluctuations, and geopolitical situations that impact the Gulf region.

Irfan Khan, President of 麻豆原创 HANA Database & Analytics at 麻豆原创, also commented on technology鈥檚 role in building resilience. 鈥淏usiness leaders today are under greater pressure than ever before, with many predicting a significant slowdown in global economic activity. Through showcasing solutions such as 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) and S/4HANA at today鈥檚 event, we want to demonstrate the important role that technology can play in addressing these challenges.鈥�

Khan added, 鈥淭o enable business resiliency while also encouraging innovation to spur growth and take advantage of new opportunities, 麻豆原创 is leading the charge establishing an 麻豆原创 business data fabric to harmonize all critical enterprise data and also embedding AI technologies in all its solutions and partnering with other leaders in AI to ensure we remain ahead of the curve.鈥�

Democratizing AI in business

Among the host of recently announced AI partnerships is 麻豆原创鈥檚 new Datasphere solution, built on 麻豆原创 BTP. 麻豆原创 is working strategically with industry-leading data and AI companies 鈥� Collibra NV, Confluent Inc, Databricks Inc and DataRobot Inc 鈥� to enrich 麻豆原创 Datasphere and empower organizations to create a unified data architecture that securely combines 麻豆原创 software data and non-麻豆原创 data. 麻豆原创 Datasphere is the next generation of 麻豆原创 Data Warehouse Cloud and enables data professionals to integrate and deliver scalable access to mission-critical business data 鈥� with business context and logic preserved 鈥� across their organization鈥檚 data landscape.

Similarly, 麻豆原创 announced its partnership with聽IBM Watson聽last month to provide customers with new AI-driven insights and automation to help accelerate innovation and create more efficient and effective user experiences. In addition, 麻豆原创 is incorporating聽Microsoft鈥檚 Azure OpenAI Service聽in solutions such as 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors to access powerful language models that analyze and generate natural language.

Commenting on the significance of embedding AI into existing 麻豆原创 solutions, rather than developing individual AI-powered products, guest speaker Pavlos Panagiotidis, Global VP of AI and Hyperautomation at 麻豆原创, pointed out that this is a way of democratizing access to the power of AI for business. He adds this is important given the shortage of skills in the IT sector, and particularly in AI technology skills.

According to Panagiotidis, 麻豆原创 is at the leading edge of research and development, combining AI with ERP, big data and related technologies and has already embedded AI functionality across its SaaS solutions, including S/4HANA Cloud, 麻豆原创 Fieldglass, 麻豆原创 Concur, SuccessFactors and the 麻豆原创 CX stack of solutions. 鈥淏y embedding AI and creating AI-powered modules to extend existing 麻豆原创 landscapes in 麻豆原创 BTP 鈥� such as Conversational AI and Intelligent Robotic Process Automation 鈥� 麻豆原创 is helping smaller and medium-sized businesses to compete,鈥� he says.

Panagiotidis adds that 麻豆原创 and its partners are focusing on developing responsible AI solutions that benefit businesses and individuals. 鈥淭here are multiple ethical considerations we keep in mind when embedding AI solutions, such as controlling use of customer data, counteracting bias in algorithms, and demonstrating transparency in the way interpretations and conclusions are reached. If AI is handled responsibly, it has great potential to improve the lives of employees and the performance of businesses. For example, repetitive and manual processes can be carried out by algorithms, leaving employees free to work on more complex, creative and value-added tasks.鈥�

Echoing the IDC鈥檚 findings on the rise in cloud adoption, Panagiotidis concluded, 鈥淭he growth of AI goes hand in hand with the global transition to cloud, and it is changing 麻豆原创 services for the better. Companies that delay implementing cloud deployments of their business processes will also be missing out on the power of AI. The potential benefits of AI technology are almost infinite in the world of commerce and industry.鈥�

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