Axios House: Specificity is key to successful AI use, executives say

DAVOS, Switzerland — Clearly stating the goals of AI in an organization can be the difference between success and failure, two chief executives said at an event this week at Axios House.

The big picture: Companies that understand their AI objectives and tailor their use cases accordingly are best poised to win the AI race.

Axios' Courtenay Brown and Ina Fried moderated conversations with Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian and Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur. They were sponsored by Qualcomm.

What they're saying: There are three key steps to getting a positive return on AI, Kurian told Fried — "organize your data, ensure you have a strong foundation … and rethink the process" for which you are using it.

• "When AI is driven as a pure technology project, often it fails because the business line doesn't understand — and doesn't agree on — the metric" it's trying to achieve.

Case in point: "Customer service" isn't a specific enough key performance indicator, Kurian said.

• He used "speeding up claims resolution" as an indicator that works in insurance claims processing because it "is the best way to retain customers."

Honeywell is taking it a step further, Kapur said, by using AI to automate parts of its engineering process — starting with specifications.

• Kapur likened Honeywell's level of customization for clients to a custom tailor, and the process "takes a lot of time."

• "So we are automating the generation of specifications using AI, so that engineers spend less time duplicating what they did 20 times before."

Content from the sponsor's remarks:

In a View from the Top segment, Durga Malladi, Qualcomm Technologies' EVP and GM, technology planning, edge solutions and data center, said he thinks about the spectrum of use cases when it comes to where to run AI.

• "For instance, something that is far more personal and contextual, you might want to run it immediately and locally, directly on the device. … We see a continuum of computing and connectivity," Malladi said.

Go deeper: Watch the full interviews on YouTube.