KUALA LUMPUR: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not something that's foreign to most of us since it has been widely used in multiple sectors, systems and tasks.
Despite Malaysians being cognisant of its prominence in many operations, many are still perplexed about how it applies to their business or whether it is applicable in the first place.
McKinsey & Company recently announced the arrival of QuantumBlack (the AI arm of McKinsey & Company) in Malaysia in conjunction with the company's 25th anniversary.
Acquired by the global strategy and management consulting firm in 2015, Quantum Black primarily helps organisations to leverage AI to tackle complex problems and has been aiding McKinsey's work in analytics.
McKinsey & Company's partner and QuantumBlack's regional leader, Timur Umetayev believes that QuantumBlack can be a game-changer for companies during their road to achieving the Fourth Industrial Revolution vision.
"While McKinsey has served clients in Malaysia on data and analytics, establishing QuantumBlack here will enable all of our analytics colleagues under one umbrella called QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, to be a valuable partner to more organisations," said Umetayev.
Furthermore, QuantumBlack's data scientist senior principal, Paul Beaumont said how McKinsey found that 50 per cent of work time in Malaysia is spent on highly automatable repetitive activities.
"As Malaysia continues to play a key contributing role in high-value manufacturing and global services, there is a great opportunity for companies to accelerate AI adoption and deliver real-world impact for their people," Beaumont said.
Having served clients across financial, manufacturing, and healthcare industries and for a range of functions, they are confident that QuantumBlack can support organisations regardless of their stage on the AI maturity curve.
IS MALAYSIA READY FOR AI?
No matter how optimistic we are about Malaysia's future with the help of cloud and AI, we are still sauntering our way to the top.
Umetayev said that aside from talent shortage and lack of skills in Malaysia, many organisations are uncertain about the perks of moving into the cloud and if it accommodates their business.
"If you look at Malaysia, the country's private and public sector as well as manufacturing sector are a little behind in fully embracing AI but that's where we see the potential distribution. I feel like some companies in Malaysia are reluctant toward cloud which makes it difficult for them to progress when they start bringing it in and this slows down the process of adoption. So we plan on educating the business community on how it can help their business instead," he added.
Meanwhile, Beaumont mentioned how some organisations have been collecting data for their data processes but they were unaware of its usage.
And while having workable data is crucial for machine learning, meeting clients' needs is just as important too.
"Aside from the right quality data, it's also about the feasibility, if there's a business case, tech stats, etc. We want to make sure that our work fits into the client's production environments, meets the highest software standards, and reuse hybrid intelligent lines with the end-user in mind," Beaumont said.
According to McKinsey's global survey, The State of AI in 2021, AI has become a core topic within the CEO's agenda or many major organisations, but only a few are maximising the value.
To help other organisations to see higher returns from AI, QuantumBlack brings technical leaders, industry and subject-matter experts so they are part of one process, co-creating solutions, and iterating models.