There is a need to AI-fy companies: Rajesh Sinha, Founder and Chairman of Fulcrum Digital
In a vivid conversation exploring the frontiers of Generative AI and AI integration, Rajesh Sinha, Founder and Chairman of Fulcrum Digital, delves into the transformative power of AI across industries. With a keen focus on Responsible AI and practical solutions for businesses, Rajesh sheds light on the journey from crawling to running with Generative AI, emphasizing the need for a mindset shift and strategic implementation.
From AI-fying operations to envisioning AI as a supportive co-pilot, Rajesh’s insights paint a vivid picture of how organizations can harness the full potential of AI to drive innovation, enhance productivity, and create meaningful value in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Some edited excerpts:
What are the common issues that organizations face when implementing Generative AI?
When I talk to customers worldwide, especially while traveling, two problem areas emerge that they are all trying to solve using Generative AI. The first problem is vertical: how can they use generative AI to make more money and better service their customers? The second problem is horizontal: how can they make their employees more productive? The goal is to reduce a task that currently takes one week to be completed in just one hour. So, essentially, the focus is on productivity improvement and monetization enhancement. These are the two areas, doesn’t matter which sector I go and talk to; they all talk in this language.
The second area that is very apparent in Generative AI is the progression from crawling to walking, jogging, and eventually running. About a year ago, and even six months back, many were in the crawling stage. Now, I feel that a significant number have moved on to walking, some are jogging, but the overall progress is still ongoing, and walking the talk is the name of the game.
How do organizations AI-fy their operations and processes?
After implementing the AI fabric within your company, the next step is to AI-fy your organization. Many companies are not yet prepared for AI-fication, similar to how they were manual before the digital transformation. The term now is to AI-fy your company, which involves working at both the data and people levels. Digitization has led to the availability of vast amounts of data, but the challenge is to make it clear and usable. AI-fying your data involves understanding how to leverage and process this data effectively. Additionally, there is a need to AI-fy your people, addressing both the mindset and skills required in the age of AI.
How do you see the integration of AI Assistant tools in various industries?
One significant opportunity lies in the implementation of AI Assistant tools tailored for specific industries. For instance, creating a claims AI assistant for the insurance industry or a CRMAI assistant for sales processes. These AI assistants can streamline tasks such as proposal creation, making them more efficient and allowing employees to focus on higher-value activities. The integration of AI Assistant tools in various industries is seen as a key area for business improvement.
How does your company approach AI integration and solution building?
Our company has an opportunity for disablers. We need to educate them, show them successful examples in the industry, and help them crawl, walk, jog, run in the AI world by building a small solution to instill confidence in them, where they can trust. That’s the disabler opportunity. Then there are enablers who are already running and have achieved 80 percent on their journey, but for some reason, their Gen AI is not able to help them finish the last leg. We see an opportunity for handholding those mature players to help them bring successful AI solutions. Once you have more stories of successful AI, then you can create ten more customers in that space.
How do you envision AI integration into mainstream processes and platforms?
We use an approach similar to APIs, where plugins and APIs are configured to only bring things inside, not to take things outside and take it into the public domain. That’s how you configure a platform like Ryze. The second one is Advanced RAG AI, which I talked about – Retrieval Augmented Generator. We are educating people on what to ask and how to ask with the Generative platform so it can give you a better intelligent answer and that itself is a big opportunity.
How do you see India as a market for AI adoption?
In India, the market is wonderful! When I say AI, there are two parts of AI. One is a mindset part, and one is a technology part. I think mindset-wise, India is two steps ahead of the rest of the world, including the US, I would say. Mindset-wise, people have the appetite, thinking process to adopt and accept it. If it fails, they are willing to just throw it out and move on compared to other countries. Technologically, I feel India has to pick up some things from China and the US because they are far ahead in AI technology and innovation. That’s where they need to learn from them.
