AI as a new democratization force

Episode Summary

In this episode, Markus Zirn and Pietro Casella, Managing Director and Chief Architect at EQT, emphasize the pivotal role of meticulous data management as the cornerstone for successful automation. Pietro stresses the necessity of treating data as a vital trigger for automation, establishing it as non-negotiable on the journey to success. He advises on the democratization of automation, as a way to break down silos and empower team members for innovation and efficiency. Finally, Pietro shares the importance of challenging traditional practices, urging a reconsideration of these methods in the face of AI's transformative impact.

Timestamps

*(00:00) Episode Start

*(01:42) Pietro's background

*(02:50) EQT's digital transformation journey

*(05:06) Impact of automation on EQT

*(07:25) Alignment EQT's digital leadership and The New Automation Mindset concepts

*(15:20) Power of AI as a catalyst for democratization

*(18:00) EQT's data-centric approach, Motherbrain and Pietro's thoughts on the future data

*(26:15) Killer apps of Generative AI and exploring AI's impact

*(35:56) The role of AI in transforming business rules engines

Episode Key Takeaways

• Data as an enabler of automation: The foundation of successful automation lies in meticulous data management. Treating data as a crucial trigger for automation is not just a choice—it's an essential element for a successful automation journey.

• Start every project with a question: Initiate projects with a focused question, aligning efforts to gather essential data. This targeted approach cultivates purposeful action, leading to more streamlined and valuable outcomes.

• Democratize automation within your IT department: Break down IT silos and empower every team member with a holistic view of systems. Providing the right tools and authority encourages innovation and efficiency, uncovering simpler solutions to the same problems.

• Reconsider traditional practices with AI: Challenge traditional methods, such as relying on business rules engines, by embracing the transformative power of AI. Reflect on established practices and explore more efficient alternatives to stay ahead in the evolving landscape.

Top Quote

“There's this other dimension of democratization. I think usually this word is used to describe the process of empowering your employees, the functional people. And I think that's kind of the goal. But, very few people speak about the democratization inside your technology department. And so if you have, let's say the CRM team, and you only allow them to work in the CRM, and they don't know that it's possible to do a lot of magic tricks outside of the CRM, right? They don't know they have permission to touch the database, right? Or to do automation. So they tend to build this spaghetti ball inside your CRM without realizing that if they step outside, it's quite remote controllable. So if you think about Salesforce, when we rolled out to the automation platform and the data platform, we left, we said, 'everybody has the keys to it, everybody can use it inside the technology department.' And that led to people finding much simpler ways from an architecture perspective to solve the same problem.”

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