CASE STUDY
I think speed is obviously one of the key opportunities. Repetitive work can be done very easily by an AI agent. At the same time, we need to ensure that our people are being developed.
We are running AI courses across the Group. We want to educate everyone, from the Board right down to the operational level. I’ m trying to get to a point where, every quarter, everyone has to complete a course, and it’ s mandatory. It’ s not a case of whether you want to do it or not. You have to do it because if you don’ t understand AI, you won’ t be able to use it or take advantage of it.
That’ s one piece. Investment is another, and we need to make sure there is a return on that investment. I think a lot of people have what I call‘ TikTok strategies’. What I mean by that is they see something and immediately think,‘ Yes, we must use it.’
For us, it’ s all about whether AI provides a return on investment. If it doesn’ t, we won’ t do it. It doesn’ t matter how fashionable it is; we won’ t do it. So, for every investment we make, we conduct a proper TCO analysis, looking at the total cost of ownership as well as the return on investment. Because why spend money if it’ s not going to give you a return?
As AI becomes more deeply embedded across the Group, how are you addressing the critical issues of data quality and governance?
Today, you have frontier models such as Claude and OpenAI, as well as many other models. But the minute you plug your data into them, you’ re sharing it with the public cloud, which we cannot do. Our data needs to remain secure.
I think this is one of the things people forget. Once you start introducing AI technology, you also have to consider how you’ re going to protect it. As you put more things in the cloud, you still need to know how to protect them, and that’ s something a lot of people don’ t pay enough attention to.
For us, security is number one. We have to be very secure and make sure that all the necessary checks and balances are in place. We have a very detailed governance and audit process that we follow, and it is carried out regularly and robustly.
We have external audits and internal audits checking all these areas. That is a really critical piece of the AI puzzle that a lot of people forget to focus on.
Customer experience is particularly important in automotive, where you represent major brands including Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen and Škoda. How is digital technology reshaping the customer journey, from initial engagement and sales through to servicing and long-term ownership?
Look, customers today want things immediately. They want an immediate response and immediate support. This cannot be delivered by humans alone. It has to be a hybrid model where we also have AI chatbots.
That’ s a big issue for everyone. But we’ ve been fortunate because we’ ve been transforming over the last six years that I’ ve been with Ali & Sons. We migrated to Oracle Fusion Cloud, so we’ ve undergone a lot of data cleansing during that process.
In terms of our data, we’ re now quite mature. We’ re also moving to a data lakehouse, which will then feed data into the AI models that we will have. Data quality can be a real struggle if you haven’ t addressed it properly. We’ ve been cleansing our data for the last five or six years, so we’ re in a pretty good position.
As more workloads move to the cloud and employees gain access to AI tools, how has your cybersecurity strategy evolved to address the new risks?
We’ ve developed solutions for the automotive brands, where you can speak to an AI chatbot and it can tell you what car you should be buying. You could simply explain,‘ I have a family, I have three kids, I don’ t know which car to go for. Can you guide me?’ It can immediately tell you exactly what kind of cars you should be looking at and can also make comparisons for you.
We need to have a business that is open 24 / 7. So, when the humans sleep, the AI agents work. That’ s how we do it, and that’ s how we see the future of using technology to make sure that we’ re closer to our customers. We can predict their requirements before they need them and make their lives simpler and easier. That’ s critical, in my opinion, to ensuring that we maintain our growth and our closeness to our customers. •
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INTELLIGENT CIO MIDDLE EAST www. intelligentcio. com