Partner in charge of Data Science and Analytics at Deloitte West Africa, Jania Okwechime, has advised businesses and institutions to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) responsibly and sustainably by creating AI strategies in with their business plans.

According to her, businesses also need to put governance and risk processes in place so that they can innovate with trust and confidence

Jania Okwechime disclosed this in an interview with the media at the sidelines of the just-ended 8th Ghana CEO Summit held in Accra.

She mentioned that in this era, AI is transforming businesses more than anything else in the world and therefore called on all institutions across the globe to embrace AI.

Madam Okwechime also advised businesses to take advantage of AI to improve and accelerate their products and services for the benefit of their customers.

She noted that Ghanaian businesses are doing well with respect to the adoption of AI.

However, she indicated that the adoption of AI globally has moved from the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) stage to more implementation stage.

“In the African continent, we are still experimenting with some of the opportunities that the AI can generate for the people. So, we see adoption, but it could get accelerated”.

“I think it is not going to be long before they would see the impact of AI. You already saw some of the presenters [8th Ghana CEO Summit] today specifically in the telecoms and advertising industry that, AI is already being leveraged by businesses. We only going to see the acceleration in the next coming years”.

Why AI has become a buzzword

She noted that AI has been run for decades, but suddenly, AI has become a buzzword.

According to her though Artificial Intelligence has been around for decades, businesses have now realised its importance and are now taking advantage of it because of the data explosion.

“Every time an action is created, data is formed. Every time we send a text message, every time we pick up the phone to make a phone call, every time we pick our favorite series on Netflix, it's creating data. So, there's a huge data explosion”, she mentioned.

“Ninety percent of the data that we used today were created in the past two years. So, you can imagine. Now we have no choice but to harness technology like AI to be able to gain insights”, she added.

Generative AI and the traditional AI

Touching on generative AI and traditional AI, Madam Okwechime first drew the differences between the former and the latter.

In her words: “The difference is that generative AI can perform tasks predominantly done by humans. Like reading documents, creating documents, generating videos, generating reports, etc.”

“Now, it is making AI more accessible to businesses in a way that they can harness in three different ways. They can change the way they interact with their customers and increase customer experience internally within their network and their internal organisations. So, that they can improve internal statistics”, she pointed out.

Continuing, she said by harnessing AI and generative AI, businesses can reduce cost by automating tasks, and can make things more effective and efficient.

“One thing that is key to also mention is why AI and generative AI are used today for automation tasks and improving the set of processes that businesses already have. Only businesses that are going to be successful and thriving in the next five years or those which are harnessing AI to transform what they are doing. And this needs some more thinking”, she stated.

Concerns about AI leading to job losses

On concerns of AI leading to job losses and other things, she said: “So, that is the concern right, because I mentioned that there are certain things that AI and generative AI can do today that were predominately done by humans. So, that is a concern, and we understand why. However, it doesn’t need to be”.

We don’t need to worry

“We don’t need to worry about our staff and our talent losing jobs, but rather we must transform the talent.  So, things are going to change in businesses. Their staff are going to change the way they work. So, organisations are responsible for upscaling their staff”.

She added that “Because their roles are going to be transformed. Instead of one person being in charge of creating a report, now that person needs to know how to use and leverage AI solutions to be able to interpret that report to be able to make strategic decisions. So, AI has a big implication on talent and the responsibility and the responsibility of the organisations to invest in the talent and upscale it”.