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Digital Alliance Tech Summit 2024 will focus on generative AI

Oct. 15 event aims to bring together Wisconsin-based tech leaders to collaborate, strategize

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October 7, 2024

NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – It’s no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) has woven its way into nearly every industry in the world.

The cutting-edge technology is not just a buzzword – it’s transforming the way businesses operate, innovate and compete.

Furthermore, generative AI – which refers to algorithms that can create new content, designs or solutions based on existing data – is becoming a game-changer for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

With that in mind, the NEW Digital Alliance (NEWDA) – which operates under the leadership of New North, Inc. – is again hosting the NEW Digital Alliance Tech Summit 2024, this time focusing heavily on generative AI.

“Generative AI is playing an increasingly larger role in our regional economy,” Jason Mathwig, industry alliance director for New North Inc., said. “Since our initial Tech Summit in August of last year, significant advancements in this technology have been made.”

This year’s summit – set for 1-4 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Best Western Premier Bridgewood Resorts in Neenah – will bring together Wisconsin-based tech leaders to collaborate on increasing tech talent within Northeast Wisconsin, while learning about the emerging opportunities AI can provide.

“It’s an opportunity for IT digital leaders in our region to come together, collaborate and learn more about what other companies are doing in the space of AI,” Mathwig said. “Last year, we focused on what AI is and what the new buzzword was that everyone was talking about.”

This year, he said, NEWDA wanted to focus on how businesses can use it.

“We will be looking at the current state of AI, along with hearing how two regional companies have positioned themselves in the current digital environment,” Mathwig said. “Strategies for successfully piloting and implementing AI technologies also will be discussed.” 

AI itself, Mathwig said, has been around for many years.

Generative AI capabilities, he said, are what’s upping the game – changing the way work is being accomplished.

Mathwig said he likens generative AI to a person using Google to search for something on the internet. 

Jason Mathwig

“When you Google something, you type in what you’re looking for and it gives you a response,” he said. “With generative AI, it’s similar – but it’s actually creating content, not just pulling things that are already in existence out there.” 

At this year’s summit, Matt Adamczyk, principal technical program manager at Microsoft, will discuss the exponential growth of AI in the last 15 months and what businesses will see going forward.

“Exponential growth is inherently difficult for humans to fully comprehend or predict,” Adamczyk said. “So, we all need to get out of our comfort zone a little bit as we try to predict what is coming next. It’s also easy to look at current capabilities and dismiss some of the AI as less interesting than the hype makes it out to be. But it’s easy to forget that that capability is going to grow exponentially going forward.”

During his presentation, Adamczyk said he will share several specific examples of the advancements made in the various AI models currently in the marketplace and the sophistication levels they’ve attained in the last 18 months or so.

Adamczyk said some of the ways generative AI can support businesses include:

  • Content creation: Tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT can generate articles, stories and even code.
  • Art and design: AI models can create artwork, design products and even generate music.
  • Health care: Generative AI can assist in creating synthetic medical data for research and training purposes.
  • Entertainment: AI-generated scripts, video game content and virtual characters are becoming increasingly common.
  • Manufacturing: Product design is greatly enhanced; production processes are optimized for accuracy, efficiency and the ability to offer customization at scale.

Speakers, in addition to Adamczyk, include:

  • Carl Deal – managing VP executive partner program, Gartner
  • Elaine Stephens – head of customer engineering (Wisconsin), Google
  • Gov. Tony Evers (invited to speak)
  • Ryan Veleke – VP of artificial intelligence and decision technologies, Plexus
  • Tom Hardwick – IT director of business and application services, SECURA Insurance

Those interested in attending the free event can find more information at t.ly/newdatechsummit24.

Focused on manufacturing

Adoption of generative AI in manufacturing, Adamczyk said, is currently one of the biggest focuses of Microsoft in Wisconsin.  

“In Wisconsin, we are really focused on the manufacturing industry, as we believe that it is the bedrock industry of the state,” he said. “If our manufacturers don’t find ways to lean into this technology and adopt it, we will fall behind and we risk suffering an even further loss of manufacturing in the state.” 

Man standing on a stage giving a presentation to a group of people.
Last year’s summit, Jason Mathwig said, focused on what AI was. This year will focus on how businesses can use it. Submitted Photo

The challenges in doing that, Adamczyk said, come from manufacturers maybe not understanding the importance or significance of implementing generative AI in their plants. 

A recent report by the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing & Productivity queried Wisconsin-based manufacturers as to whether they believed AI will impact their business. 

“Our Wisconsin Manufacturing Report discovered that 51% of manufacturers think that AI has nothing to do with them or their business,” Buckley Brinkman, the center’s executive director and CEO, said of the report. “We believe AI will transform the way individuals work and how companies stay competitive.”

Adamczyk said there is concern about that number.

“We’re alarmed by that number, which is part of the reason we’re investing heavily in helping the manufacturing industry in Wisconsin adopt AI,” he said. 

The Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing & Productivity released several videos showing how manufacturers can use AI.

Other examples of that, Adamczyk said, will be presented at the summit.

Mathwig said even the smallest of companies has something to gain by using generative AI – including repetitive tasks, such as invoicing or preparing expense reports. 

“It’s not that they’re difficult to do, but they may take a long time,” he said. “If that process can be done with AI, it might free up several hours in a week or a couple of hours in the day so that you can focus on other things – like being more creative or innovative.”

Content creation in business, Mathwig said, is one of the more common uses of AI so far.

“That content can include many things from text, images, music, audios or videos; to writing code, to data, to summarizing things, to coming up with emails, to social media posts, to reports, to PowerPoints – you name it,” he said. “There’s a wide variety of content that’s out there and what generative AI does is it pulls from other information that’s already out there and it’s smart enough to recognize patterns and things. The more you use it, the smarter it gets because it’s learning, just like humans. It creates brand new content for you based on the prompts you give it.”

With good comes caution

Though there are various positives with generative AI, Adamczyk said he encourages fact-checking.

“I wouldn’t trust it 100% – I’d still go back and check it,” he said. “But it could turn a 30-minute task into a five-minute task because now you just have to check the work and maybe make a small correction versus doing the entirety of the work in the first place.”

Matt Adamczyk

Microsoft, Adamczyk said, still very intentionally uses the term Copilot – which the tech company has used from the beginning of its generative AI offerings.

“It’s intentional because it is still a human-computer partnership or relationship of working together to solve problems,” he said. “So, I would be wary of any systems out there that are trying to claim full autonomy or full capability of being able to do work on its own, but rather finding ways to lean in on the human creativity or human ability paired with the new computer capabilities. These models still make things up, so it’s imperative to still have a human in that loop.”

Adamyczyk said generative AI also presents challenges – such as ethical concerns, the potential for misuse and the need for substantial computational resources.

However, the advantages and benefits, he said, far outweigh the concerns and disadvantages.

“It’s perfectly natural to have a sense of fear and uncertainty,” he said. “But it’s also important for Wisconsin, as a whole, to lean into the uncertainty and the potential that exists with these tools. As a company, we believe that this advent of AI capabilities will have the same kind of change as the Industrial Revolution had on the planet and different markets. It will unlock a new level of productivity.”

Mathwig said he thinks one of the biggest misconceptions about AI is that it’s going to take people’s jobs from them.

“AI itself isn’t going to take jobs, but someone who knows how to use AI might take a person’s job,” he said. “Humans still have to interact with it so people need to learn how to use this technology just like other technologies (adapted over the years). So, for example, a computer didn’t take anyone’s jobs when they first came out, but people who knew how to operate computers took some jobs from people who didn’t.”

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