Episode 5
Why 90% of AI Initiatives Fail & How to Fix It
In this episode of Impact with Digital, we dive into a critical problem in AI adoption: 90% of AI initiatives fail—not because of the technology itself, but because companies approach AI as a tech-first initiative rather than a business-value-driven transformation.
Our guest, Andrey Kaluzhny, CEO of 8Allocate, shares insights into:
✅ Why AI implementations often fail to deliver business value
✅ The common mistakes companies make when adopting AI
✅ The stakeholder-first approach to AI & digital transformation
✅ Why Ukraine has become a global leader in IT & AI talent
✅ The importance of ecosystems and partnerships in digital success
Andrey brings over 20 years of experience in software development, financial technology, and AI innovation, working with organisations across Ukraine, Poland, and Romania to drive digital transformation.
🎯 Key Takeaways
🚨 AI is not a magic bullet!
- Many AI projects fail because companies implement AI for the sake of AI—without aligning it to business goals and measurable value.
- Organisations must start with business strategy first, then integrate AI where it drives impact.
📊 Data is the foundation of AI success.
- Companies often jump into AI solutions before organising a strategy.
- A successful AI implementation starts with data collection, data quality, and stakeholder needs before introducing automation.
🌍 Ukraine is a rising powerhouse in AI & software engineering.
- With world-class engineers, a strong mathematical background, and a thriving tech ecosystem, Ukraine is one of the best places to source high-quality AI & IT talent.
- The Ukrainian tech industry is scaling fast, offering cost-effective, top-tier software development services.
🤝 The power of strategic partnerships.
- Large enterprises and banks often fail at digital transformation because they try to replicate FinTech models internally.
- The smarter approach? Partnering with FinTech innovators instead of competing against them.
⚠️ Why stakeholder buy-in matters.
- Digital transformation isn’t just about technology—it’s about people, processes, and culture.
- Without alignment from leadership & teams, even the best technology won’t succeed.
💡 Quotes from the Episode
💬 "90% of AI actions fail because they focus on technology first instead of business value." – Andrey Kaluzhny
💬 "If you don’t get stakeholder buy-in, even the best AI solution won’t succeed." – Jay Tikum
💬 "Ukraine’s IT industry is one of the most scalable and cost-effective in Europe, with world-class AI and software engineers." – Andrey Kaluzhny
💬 "Technology is just a tool. The real question is—are you solving the right problem?" – Jay Tikum
📚 Resources & Links
🔹 Connect with Andrey Kaluzhny on LinkedIn
🔹 Learn More About 8Allocate:
🔹 Read More on AI & Digital Transformation:
📩 We want to hear from you! Please take our quick survey to share the topics you’d like to hear about on the Impact with Digital Podcast. Together, let’s explore how digital strategies can create profit, social impact, and sustainability.
📣 Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear from you!
💡 What’s your biggest challenge with AI adoption? Drop a comment below! 👇
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Transcript
90 percent of AI actions fail they are happening due to technology, not due to
Speaker:realizing business value and benefits.
Speaker:We are trying to focus on those areas that are the most demanding
Speaker:from overall market perspective.
Speaker:Now it's data and AI, of course.
Speaker:Most of our focus is on those areas because that's what clients need.
Speaker:They want to understand their data, they want to.
Speaker:Turn it into their competitive advantage.
Speaker:They want to get some additional efficiency with AI.
Speaker:Welcome to Impact with Digital.
Speaker:Today we have our first guest, and I'm excited to introduce
Speaker:Andrey from 8Allocate.
Speaker:Andrey, welcome to our first guest interview.
Speaker:Looking forward to having a chat with you, and I know
Speaker:you've got a very interesting background, so let's get into it.
Speaker:Thank you very much, Jay.
Speaker:Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker:And I think it will be a great conversation.
Speaker:So maybe before we start out, if you just want to introduce yourself.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Just a couple of words about myself.
Speaker:So my name is Andrei Kaluzhny.
Speaker:I'm CEO at the technology company called 8allocate.
Speaker:We are based in Eastern Europe, primarily Ukraine, Poland, Romania.
Speaker:So this set of countries.
Speaker:I am based in Ukraine by myself, traveling a lot.
Speaker:Basically living between a couple of countries where like my
Speaker:clients are and my teams are here.
Speaker:I'm in this space for about 20 years starting from being software developer in
Speaker:very large corporations banks financial institutions, retailers, then building
Speaker:my career throughout the management and then decided to move to entrepreneurship.
Speaker:After some stage of my life.
Speaker:Oh, fantastic.
Speaker:So I'm intrigued that you based in Ukraine, obviously, we recording this
Speaker:in March, 2025, when there's a lot going on around Ukraine and the U S
Speaker:and things like that, but in let's put politics aside, what is life like as a
Speaker:business owner in Ukraine these days?
Speaker:That's where a good question.
Speaker:It is very different from those areas that are actively under Or which is
Speaker:about 20 percent of the territory based on the east and south of Ukraine.
Speaker:If you'll come to key you, for example, where I'm recording the session from
Speaker:today, you will not see any difference from London or any European city.
Speaker:So cafes, restaurants.
Speaker:Transport everything works.
Speaker:In fact, it's very sunny day today, very beautiful weather.
Speaker:So yeah, of course, there is a lot of limitations that are caused by
Speaker:the war, which we need to live with.
Speaker:But overall people are managed to find out how to organize their life.
Speaker:So now it's more more like a common than it was in 2022, for example.
Speaker:So in my opinion, the situation improves.
Speaker:Also, it's funny, but from business perspective any turbulence including
Speaker:war, it's damages some businesses, but it also opens the opportunities for another.
Speaker:For example, if you are talking about Ukraine, so of course, everything that
Speaker:was That is related to like physical production, like agriculture heavy
Speaker:metals, like machinery, those industries are not in the great shape because
Speaker:they depend on the physical plants and factories that might be destroyed.
Speaker:Also, it's harder to import and export.
Speaker:Physical goods for different reasons.
Speaker:But if you're talking about creative industries and software development
Speaker:in particular, it opened some new opportunities for for local
Speaker:companies here associated with very high quality engineers and talent
Speaker:pool, which now is like at the best.
Speaker:Absolutely like best costs across Europe and great scalability as well.
Speaker:So it's almost 3, 100 IT specialists.
Speaker:Many of them are in the country available to work.
Speaker:It's possible to scale teams quickly and the cost will be lower than, any other
Speaker:place like Poland, Romania, Hungary.
Speaker:So yeah that's in short how it works now in Ukraine from both personal
Speaker:life and business perspective.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:Obviously we see things on the media and they always show the worst side of it.
Speaker:Ukraine, you give us a totally different insight from within that.
Speaker:I think that problem with media is that they are making money on negative news.
Speaker:They are not making money on positive news because positive
Speaker:news, they are a bit more boring
Speaker:, on that positive news then, someone told me that, if you've got the most
Speaker:complex IT problem in the world, the best place to go is Ukraine.
Speaker:And that surprised me.
Speaker:I wasn't aware of that.
Speaker:I guess every country is struggling to develop their IT skills fast
Speaker:enough to keep up with the pace of technological innovation.
Speaker:But it sounds like Ukraine has got that balance in terms of, you've got bright
Speaker:people that learn very quickly and are able to respond to the changing trends.
Speaker:What's the magic formula.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker:That's very good observation.
Speaker:Honestly, I wouldn't score us as the best, so maybe we are under like top
Speaker:five or top 10 top five is still not
Speaker:bad,
Speaker:but in some areas we are indeed better than other companies.
Speaker:So we have certain specifics.
Speaker:So first of all, is the overall.
Speaker:Level of technical competency, which comes from the education.
Speaker:And it's very common for all post Soviet Union countries cause USSR
Speaker:was very much engineering focused and everything that was related
Speaker:to mathematics, physics, and other technologies, it was very prestigious.
Speaker:So a lot of people, they want to be engineers.
Speaker:They have good mathematical backgrounds.
Speaker:They study in universities.
Speaker:And it's pretty inexpensive to study in Ukrainian universities
Speaker:compared to us or probably not UK, but if you are not citizen, a
Speaker:UK citizen, it will be expensive.
Speaker:That's why like more people here, they can afford it.
Speaker:The second is Ukrainian culture which is very unique due to the
Speaker:situation we have in the country.
Speaker:So we are still not.
Speaker:part of European Union.
Speaker:We are still young and growing economy and democracy.
Speaker:That's why people here, they tend to work hard.
Speaker:They tend to measure everything based on their success.
Speaker:They tend to achieve build their career.
Speaker:So basically, if you are talking about work life balance so
Speaker:their preference is very often shifted toward work versus life.
Speaker:How does it apply to like day to day work?
Speaker:So for example, you might decide to run important release on Friday.
Speaker:And 6 PM, you identify that nothing is working in some countries.
Speaker:So it will be really hard to engage, to convince engineers to stay and fix.
Speaker:So they'd probably say that, okay, we'll do it on Monday.
Speaker:If it's Ukrainian, very often they will volunteer themselves to stay
Speaker:and fix it just to make it happen.
Speaker:And the third one is again, something that is pretty unique for Ukraine
Speaker:compared to Poland, compared to Romania, compared to even Russia.
Speaker:We never had a well developed internal technology market and product
Speaker:market, which means that most of our.
Speaker:IT and software development was outsourcing and Western oriented,
Speaker:which means that if you are successful, if you're a senior developer here,
Speaker:then it's very likely that you had a chance to work with in international
Speaker:companies, with different cultures.
Speaker:You understand what it means to work throughout various time zones.
Speaker:You understand what it means to be like.
Speaker:Productive, some cultural specifics of other people, and you basically understand
Speaker:how to work in large corporation in multicultural, multi language environment.
Speaker:And I think that's something that is very important let's compare it to.
Speaker:Poland because they have very strong , local tech markets.
Speaker:There might be cases that software developers, they don't use English
Speaker:on daily basis, for example.
Speaker:And there are companies that are like fully Polish.
Speaker:So it's better to talk in Polish in fact, most of the technology companies
Speaker:that are in Ukraine, if they are midsize or large they became global.
Speaker:They've opened office in another country.
Speaker:So it's real multicultural environment.
Speaker:If you are thinking about developers and if you are getting those who understand
Speaker:how to work in multicultural environments, how to communicate effectively,
Speaker:how to do remote work effectively, that's something that ultimately
Speaker:drives the productivity of the team.
Speaker:So , quick key points start young, I suppose.
Speaker:So, , the younger the people in school, we can teach them about
Speaker:IT, the more beneficial it is.
Speaker:There is benefit that I forgot to mention.
Speaker:The most important is this engineering culture mathematical
Speaker:backgrounds and the desire to be like technology person and to grow.
Speaker:As technologies, so we don't have like ambitions to become managers.
Speaker:And so many people stay engineers throughout all their career,
Speaker:which is different from some other cultures, especially in Asia.
Speaker:The second one is our.
Speaker:Culture, which is very close to Western countries, hard working,
Speaker:very direct communication.
Speaker:For example, if Ukrainian engineer will see that you are making the
Speaker:mistake in terms of the approach, in terms of the architecture, even if
Speaker:you are his boss, he's a, her boss.
Speaker:They
Speaker:will tell you about it practically.
Speaker:They won't be like doing it and then just failing and say,
Speaker:okay, but you asked me to do it.
Speaker:So I did what you asked me to do.
Speaker:The third one is that we were like engineers here.
Speaker:They have a lot of experience working in international environment
Speaker:because most of the companies here, they are outsourcing oriented.
Speaker:And the first one is probably the government support.
Speaker:I forgot to mention about these but now in software development the companies
Speaker:who are opening offices here, don't pay any tax at all, unless they are
Speaker:moving money away from the country.
Speaker:And engineers here, they only pay 6 percent tax out of their income.
Speaker:So it's very effective taxation that is being supported by
Speaker:governments to develop the industry.
Speaker:And in fact, Ukrainian tech industry now I think it's the largest services,
Speaker:experts industry, and one of the largest entire export industries.
Speaker:I think it's like second after agriculture at the moment.
Speaker:That's interesting point you raised.
Speaker:And this is something we'll cover in our future podcasts is the
Speaker:concept of a conducive ecosystem in digital transformation.
Speaker:can succeed, but it succeeds even better if you've got a conducive
Speaker:ecosystem and looking at What are the external influences as well
Speaker:as the internal influences and the culture of society makes a big impact
Speaker:That's indeed amazing topic and I'm working on my PhD dissertation which is
Speaker:somehow linked to the topic of getting this stable competitive advantage in
Speaker:dynamic environments for enterprises.
Speaker:So I think that ecosystem is now one of the critical success
Speaker:points to compete with others.
Speaker:In that dynamic technology and external environments and there is a lot of cases
Speaker:and examples that prove this, I think that's like now it's applicable, not
Speaker:only for small or medium sized companies.
Speaker:Which is obvious, but also for large companies as well.
Speaker:If you are a large company you have something that you produce but
Speaker:then it can be multiplied depending on the partners you've chosen.
Speaker:So now it's less about procurement and more about building those
Speaker:strategic partnerships that empower your organization.
Speaker:Tell us a little bit about 8Allocate, how you got to start it and what
Speaker:products and services you offer and what's your vision for 8Allocate?
Speaker:So as I mentioned I spent most of my career working for large companies
Speaker:in large services companies for large international clients across
Speaker:many industries, which was a pretty nice experience, but I also started
Speaker:to realize that smaller company.
Speaker:And we are around a hundred people at the moment, just to provide the context.
Speaker:It's midsize, so it's not large company in the industry.
Speaker:So I realized, I started to realize that like for, even for small company,
Speaker:there is a lot of possibilities and opportunities to provide the value to
Speaker:the clients that large large companies.
Speaker:Cannot provide.
Speaker:And so it is related to the ability of smaller company to be more innovative
Speaker:to be more agile, faster, adopt to the trends, to be flexible in terms of what's
Speaker:the company could offer to the clients.
Speaker:And those are the principles of of set like as a ground of eight aade.
Speaker:So we want to be as great as large players, large services companies but
Speaker:be more flexible, be more customer client oriented, be more agile and
Speaker:serve clients better in, in that way.
Speaker:So what does it mean in practice?
Speaker:It means that we are not focusing on certain technology, but we are
Speaker:focusing on the whole, chain of delivering value to the client.
Speaker:For example, we have a very strong departments, which is for MVP developments
Speaker:for product discovery or solution discovery that gets help client on
Speaker:the initial stage to refine the idea.
Speaker:Before it will even go into the implementation or estimation, then
Speaker:we have really strong, I don't want to call it a AI consultancy,
Speaker:but it's probably AI advisory.
Speaker:So we are focusing on helping clients to understand their processes the
Speaker:inefficiencies in their processes and identify the ways of where AI could be
Speaker:plugged into it to drive the real value.
Speaker:Cause now there is a lot of hype around AI, but the statistics, like 70
Speaker:percent of digital transformations fail.
Speaker:I think that's in AI world now, it's 90 percent of AI actions fail
Speaker:because they they are happening due to technology, not due to realizing
Speaker:business value and benefits.
Speaker:And because we are smaller, we can be flexible.
Speaker:So we are trying to focus on those areas that are the most demanding
Speaker:from overall market perspective.
Speaker:So now it's data and AI, of course.
Speaker:So most of our focus is on those areas because that's what clients need.
Speaker:So they want to understand their data, they want to.
Speaker:Turn it into their competitive advantage.
Speaker:Then they want to get some additional efficiency with AI.
Speaker:So basically the idea of this service is about a digital transformation.
Speaker:So I think that now like data is very significant parts of digital
Speaker:transformation for every organization.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's interesting maybe just to tell the listeners, how we
Speaker:collaborate and how we got in touch.
Speaker:So obviously you deal with, the technical aspects.
Speaker:My organization Vedanvi.
Speaker:We deal with more the front end, right?
Speaker:So we answer the question to CEOs or C suites, are we doing the
Speaker:right thing, are we going to get the maximum return on investment?
Speaker:And, as you say, in the world of AI, there's just so much
Speaker:that you can pursue, right?
Speaker:There's so many solutions out there for problems, as a CEO.
Speaker:The problem is going to be, okay, where do I focus?
Speaker:I could work on a CRM.
Speaker:I could work on data.
Speaker:I could work on, internal ERP system, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:And how do they decide?
Speaker:And that's where we help them in, assessing the stakeholder needs.
Speaker:We do lots of research and then come up with strategies that are needed.
Speaker:and prioritize rather than just doing it for the sake of doing it.
Speaker:You obviously focus on, then the next phase of the equation, which
Speaker:is then on, how do you get the best user experience and, the customer
Speaker:journey and all those kinds of things.
Speaker:So maybe if you want to just highlight a little bit about how you see
Speaker:transitioning from where we work to transitioning where you work how
Speaker:it actually benefits you, right?
Speaker:So if you get somebody who comes in.
Speaker:Who knows exactly where they're doing it and what benefits they're going to get
Speaker:versus somebody who went to a conference and there's this AI tool and they
Speaker:said, implement this AI tool for me.
Speaker:I'm sure it causes you a lot of headaches because, there's no clarity of purpose,
Speaker:no clarity of what they really want.
Speaker:They just want to jump on the bandwagon.
Speaker:You are right.
Speaker:So this is in my opinion, it closely relates to the idea of ecosystems,
Speaker:which we briefly touched earlier.
Speaker:I am huge believer in the specialization.
Speaker:So you can be experts in everything, but you can be expert only in
Speaker:a few things at the same time.
Speaker:So that's why I really love to collaborate with you on on this holistic
Speaker:value chain for the client, because you understand the business and how
Speaker:everything should be organized on a value perspective, and then we can turn
Speaker:it into a great technology solution.
Speaker:I started to build this AI efficiency offering, again, and I think that company
Speaker:that experiments and had the culture of.
Speaker:experimentation, trying something new innovating.
Speaker:It's more like strategically stable than company that
Speaker:doesn't have those capabilities.
Speaker:But innovation for me or experimentation for me means that
Speaker:we are planning those experiments.
Speaker:So if you are.
Speaker:trying the new technology, you still need to build some strategy
Speaker:around it, or at least form some expectations from those technologies.
Speaker:For example, we have like pretty uh, well defined and structured approach
Speaker:for implementation of AI in their organization, which contains four steps
Speaker:to implement the first use case and then scale and few step, which means scale the
Speaker:technology across the entire organization.
Speaker:But we always start like every step, it starts from understanding the value,
Speaker:understanding the business, potential business outcomes, understanding
Speaker:return of investments if it's.
Speaker:possible to calculate it.
Speaker:So we first try to predict it.
Speaker:And then once we did some implementation, we are measuring it.
Speaker:And then we compare like whatever we achieved, what we wanted to achieve.
Speaker:And then we repeat the same in the agile way.
Speaker:And that helps us to be confident that what we are doing is actually.
Speaker:Not only us, but clients to be confident that what they are doing is bringing
Speaker:the real value into the organization.
Speaker:And I unfortunately see that it's not happening.
Speaker:The boards and with all the companies as many of them, as you correctly
Speaker:mentioned, they learn about new technology and then they just throw it
Speaker:to the teams to play with it, or even worse, they might implement the large
Speaker:initiative to integrate this technology.
Speaker:And then at the end of it, they will realize that it wasn't something
Speaker:that is suitable for their business.
Speaker:Yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker:Even very large organizations, and I won't mention any names,
Speaker:FinTech, there's a lot of big banks that have, tried to replicate.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The fintech success and tried to create not just products, but even ventures.
Speaker:So a whole new business idea and they just could not compete with
Speaker:the fintech for whatever reason.
Speaker:So I think this again is, let's forget about technology, even business
Speaker:models, people are like, let's jump on the bandwagon, let's, replicate
Speaker:a fintech solution, let's develop it ourselves and further down the line,
Speaker:that wasn't right for the business.
Speaker:And that's where we step in right up front, just to say, look.
Speaker:Yes, you're going to get value out of your digital transformation,
Speaker:but are you doing the right thing?
Speaker:Is the big question that they should be asking themselves first.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I know about a lot of such cases again,
Speaker:Without naming them, I can.
Speaker:Easily remember two or three situations as you described.
Speaker:So one big bank wanted to implement some FinTech behind it, and then
Speaker:realize that it's just not working.
Speaker:So Fintech, they are usually like more innovative, more flexible.
Speaker:So they're not developing technology in the big bank approach.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They, they have, by the way, they have less resources.
Speaker:And I think that's that's another important limitation.
Speaker:So that's why they are more creative and they are focused on deriving,
Speaker:like driving business value faster.
Speaker:And if you are a large organization, if you can throw a lot of money
Speaker:into it just try to replicate uh, Probably with wrong people.
Speaker:Not from the perspective of people themselves.
Speaker:I'm sure the engineers there are great, but they are trained to work in stable,
Speaker:like regulatory environments not in.
Speaker:Like turbulence technology startup environment.
Speaker:So that's why they just can't innovate in the same way the
Speaker:smaller company innovates.
Speaker:And then as a result of it if you don't have those quick
Speaker:feedback loops to understand that everything goes wrong, just allow
Speaker:it to run for a couple of years.
Speaker:And then you realize massive losses and you are stopping the initiative.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Unfortunately it happens.
Speaker:A lot throughout the the whole life cycle of the organization.
Speaker:And I think that what's what could we do as potentially better solution
Speaker:is either engage with the partners, someone who knows how to develop those
Speaker:uh, FinTech solutions and did it in the past to help them, to allow them
Speaker:to help you to implement them for uh, instead of replicating the technology,
Speaker:you can just buy the FinTech company and to make this technology yours and then.
Speaker:You are getting not only the technology, but the entire team who
Speaker:is behind this technology who can support the further development.
Speaker:That's an interesting statement you made.
Speaker:So I work across the globe, as in a lot of developing markets
Speaker:as well as developed markets.
Speaker:And I was surprised I was doing a presentation to CEOs of banks, right?
Speaker:So this was a Eastern European country as well.
Speaker:I won't mention names, but I was doing a presentation and, we talked
Speaker:about digital transformation, FinTech and all the rest of it.
Speaker:And, I made the point, okay, you can buy up a FinTech company.
Speaker:And interestingly enough, the, one of the bank CEOs said, look, we don't
Speaker:have as much money as FinTechs have.
Speaker:So if you look at, the amount of money, at least, maybe he's tapered
Speaker:off a little bit, but if you think of investors throwing money.
Speaker:at fintech.
Speaker:There was a huge abundance of, capital available for fintech companies.
Speaker:The same amount of capital is not available for banks.
Speaker:So yeah, banks make a lot of money, et cetera, fine.
Speaker:Individual departments will have a limitation on their budget.
Speaker:And they said we can't compete.
Speaker:The idea of a bank being able to buy at fintech, yes, absolutely right.
Speaker:A few years ago.
Speaker:Nowadays, I think there's some fintech companies that are buying up smaller
Speaker:banks to get a banking license.
Speaker:In that case, doing the R and D internally, I would build it as a
Speaker:startup within the larger organization.
Speaker:So probably I would then hire people from those FinTech
Speaker:companies to lead this innovation.
Speaker:And then I would give them as much freedom as they can not connecting into
Speaker:the entire bureaucracy of the bank.
Speaker:Basically build the kind of startup within this large large enterprise and
Speaker:allow them to build First or second stable version to get the clients and
Speaker:only that I will think about integrating them into the broader organization
Speaker:Even then as I said, there's this banks.
Speaker:I know that have launched exactly that right a new venture under new
Speaker:branding, distancing themselves away from, the main big mothership.
Speaker:And even then they failed because, as you say, the culture and the startup culture
Speaker:is very hard to replicate in a large organization, no matter how much you try.
Speaker:So I think the sensible thing that's happening nowadays and enabled by digital,
Speaker:especially I look in emerging markets is a partnership of some sorts, right?
Speaker:So the problem that fintechs have Is they need to guard and win the
Speaker:trust of customers, then they need to acquire customers, which is pretty
Speaker:expensive and very time consuming.
Speaker:On the other hand, you've got banks who have major amounts of customers,
Speaker:but they don't have the agility and the innovation that, fintechs have.
Speaker:So if they partnered up, bank could rely on the agility and the
Speaker:innovation and the tech stack.
Speaker:of fintechs.
Speaker:And fintechs can rely on banks or microfinance companies on getting quick
Speaker:access to a huge amount of customers.
Speaker:And I think this is all well known, right?
Speaker:That partnerships seem to be the natural evolution in fintech.
Speaker:But obviously, we talking about the impact of digital.
Speaker:And I also like to talk a little bit about and understand why 70 percent fail.
Speaker:So maybe if you can share with us case studies that you've experienced, right?
Speaker:The good case studies versus the bad ones.
Speaker:If a CEO or if a, C suite come to you and say, build a solution for us.
Speaker:I know you do a lot of sort of background work, but they still
Speaker:could be on the wrong path, right?
Speaker:And what has been the outcome?
Speaker:Have they closed the project?
Speaker:Wasted a lot of money.
Speaker:Have they, evolved it into something else?
Speaker:Has it had an impact on their reputation, et cetera?
Speaker:So it'll be good to understand, practically from your.
Speaker:Client perspective, what is the bad case scenario, put it that way?
Speaker:That's good question.
Speaker:So I think that there was also an evolution of those bad cases.
Speaker:If you think about where industry was.
Speaker:20 years ago and compared to where industry is now.
Speaker:So earlier, the technology was mostly around back office.
Speaker:Some choosing the right programming language, choosing the right
Speaker:architecture, whatever it's cloud, on prem et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:So it wasn't like very much clients exposing.
Speaker:So basically digital transformation happens on the organization level
Speaker:and on the back office, this and in this environment, the
Speaker:worst thing that you could have is just losing the money, right?
Speaker:So you can throw the money into some.
Speaker:Initiatives.
Speaker:And then you can realize that there is no value out of it.
Speaker:Either you're not able to complete this project or you're not able
Speaker:to get the expected results.
Speaker:So you just stop this initiative and start it again.
Speaker:And I have the story from uh, my.
Speaker:Previous life being consultants in larger organizations.
Speaker:So I've seen migration of banks clearing and settlements from mind
Speaker:frame that was forced attempt to do it.
Speaker:So basically previous three, they were like multimillion initiatives,
Speaker:but just stopped and they've tried it like multiple times, so it's the
Speaker:multiplication of cost, but then it started to evolve as technology
Speaker:became more user centric, right?
Speaker:So the next wave was related to user experience.
Speaker:So now if you didn't think about UX or released the interface that is
Speaker:not user friendly, not good enough.
Speaker:Then it's not like just operational inefficiencies anymore, but you might
Speaker:start losing customers because of it because they won't be happy with
Speaker:your product, with your platform.
Speaker:And then they will be choosing the competitor.
Speaker:And I think that this dangerous trend of deploying user centric technology
Speaker:is even accelerating with AI because now there is this emerging concept
Speaker:of AI agents that can replicate human workers and do it fully autonomously.
Speaker:So you don't really have the control over those agents.
Speaker:And if you are deploying them in incorrect environment, then they might create
Speaker:a lot of issues for your business.
Speaker:Let's take the example of chatbots that are now very popular.
Speaker:. So you can't really control or you should,
Speaker:What kind of advices they provide.
Speaker:So in bad case, it might be that they just guide clients in the wrong way or
Speaker:generate inconsistent user experience and reduce a client happiness, right?
Speaker:If you're taking.
Speaker:Customer support, for example, but there might be cases when they provide some
Speaker:information that that they couldn't provide, imagine a financial institution
Speaker:and let's imagine checkboats that will be providing the guidance intentionally
Speaker:will be providing the guidance on what stocks to buy how to trade on the market,
Speaker:et cetera, and then because it might not be allowed by this FinTech company
Speaker:if they don't have the broker license.
Speaker:It may cause significant penalties and financial losses for the company
Speaker:no, absolutely.
Speaker:The regulatory aspects are really important and that's why, I come
Speaker:back to the concept of ecosystem.
Speaker:You have to factor everything.
Speaker:Not just the technological solution, if you can share with us an experience,
Speaker:an actual case study of, where things have gone wrong with one of your
Speaker:clients, obviously no mention of names or anything like that, but it'll just
Speaker:be good for the listeners to get a live case study of, how things can
Speaker:go wrong if the front end is not factored in, so we're not starting on.
Speaker:Solving the right problem.
Speaker:We starting on the technology first approach, which is in my
Speaker:view, is the wrong approach to go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So
Speaker:Some companies uh, they just don't disclose like what caused
Speaker:them to get to this problem.
Speaker:But they have like few examples like the one that I provided early about like
Speaker:first attempt to turn off the wireframe for me, it was quite interesting
Speaker:because there were like millions of money basically used ineffectively
Speaker:just track back on that example.
Speaker:What was the situation?
Speaker:What did what did you face, when they came to you?
Speaker:Did they not have customer experience or did they not do
Speaker:that kind of journey mapping or?
Speaker:The problem was in the approach.
Speaker:I'm sure you understand it.
Speaker:But maybe it's important to provide a bit of context for listeners as well.
Speaker:So what is mainframe?
Speaker:So it's very old technology and usually no one understand how it operates.
Speaker:Developers who created it they are already retired, but it is highly effective works
Speaker:but because there are like certain fee.
Speaker:Associated with every transaction.
Speaker:So most of the financial institutions, when the volumes were increased, they
Speaker:were very motivated to switch off them and move to another technology.
Speaker:And those three attempts, they failed for different reasons, but the common
Speaker:idea was that they've tried to attack it
Speaker:so just throw a lot of money and do this waterfall style of work.
Speaker:A lot of planning then requirements, gathering, then architecting and if you
Speaker:do this way, usually you end up with the situation when after first year or
Speaker:even after second year you've spent A lot of money on those initial activities.
Speaker:You present this to the boards and you realize efficiencies are not there yet
Speaker:because nothing had been developed, right?
Speaker:And then companies are not patient enough to invest.
Speaker:Another, like three to five years doing the same and guessing that maybe the
Speaker:efficiency will arrive at the end, what we did in this first attempt
Speaker:that was successful we used agile.
Speaker:So basically instead of doing a lot of planning architecting, we
Speaker:just understood like what business flows are the most important and
Speaker:we started to, migrate them from mainframe to the new system one by one.
Speaker:And as a result of it, after first year, we've got like the significant
Speaker:portion of settlements, trades coming throughout the new system.
Speaker:So basically there was some volume already that flows through the new system.
Speaker:And that was the justification that it works, there are
Speaker:efficiencies and you can continue.
Speaker:So basically it was the approach.
Speaker:It was like purely agile approach and a lot of innovative things.
Speaker:So for bank, it was really innovative.
Speaker:, and that helped to complete it.
Speaker:There was some inefficiency related to GUI in that environment, but at least
Speaker:from like a core processing perspective, it was pretty successful initiative.
Speaker:The GUI,
Speaker:if you can just describe that for our listeners.
Speaker:Yeah, sorry, the user experience, graphical user interface.
Speaker:Okay, I know we like getting into buzzwords.
Speaker:Yeah, unfortunately
Speaker:That's professional.
Speaker:So if people come to you, they've already got a mandate, right?
Speaker:You have to develop a chatbot or whatever the case is, right?
Speaker:So they just move on, ? Project management, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:But if you're the CEO and you have choices, you'd be thinking at night,
Speaker:when you're sleeping or you're in the shower, you'd be thinking,
Speaker:are we doing the right thing?
Speaker:We spending.
Speaker:10 million, 20 million, 50 million, 100 million on something.
Speaker:Are we doing the right thing?
Speaker:Whereas I think the person who's responsible for implementing just,
Speaker:they ask, what do we need to do?
Speaker:The CEO will ask, why do we need to do it?
Speaker:And it's a different kind of a concept, right?
Speaker:And so I find that engaging with the business decision makers really
Speaker:then gets to think about, okay, are we doing the right thing?
Speaker:Let's take a step back.
Speaker:Let's understand the user needs, et cetera.
Speaker:Whereas those people who are implementing, they just say, look, I've got a solution.
Speaker:I need to implement it.
Speaker:The boards told me to do it, or my senior managers told me to do it, right?
Speaker:We just tell me what to do and we need to get this rolled out.
Speaker:Often often it happens in a way you described, not only with enterprises,
Speaker:but with the smaller companies.
Speaker:For example, now we have a lot of requests to help developing MVP of new
Speaker:AI products across multiple industries.
Speaker:And we have We have structured approach aimed to understand what
Speaker:we want to do through discovery.
Speaker:And then if we see on the discovery that the goal is not only to identify
Speaker:the right solution, but also to help clients to elaborate his idea.
Speaker:And in some places even challenged the idea using our
Speaker:experience, using our intuition.
Speaker:So if you see that something It's not likely to work.
Speaker:We will tell client that look we are not sure about these or these beats.
Speaker:And when I do my conversations with the new clients, I often ask even before I
Speaker:ask the questions about their process.
Speaker:And , for example, if it's startup company, how are we
Speaker:going to make the money, right?
Speaker:So just to better understand the idea, if I'll identify that the
Speaker:solution itself shouldn't be developed in the way it is developed now.
Speaker:And as a result of each I will save the person, the money that we could
Speaker:otherwise spend on this solution.
Speaker:I think I've done a great job.
Speaker:And that's very different from many other companies who are thinking about
Speaker:the size of the engagement and how much revenue they will get out of this client.
Speaker:So for me, it's of course important, but it's not that important as
Speaker:driving the real value to the client.
Speaker:And as a result of this approach, we have clients who are working
Speaker:with us for three, four, five years.
Speaker:Because they enjoy the value we deliver to them throughout the whole process.
Speaker:And then we have clients who return to us like three, four times when
Speaker:they just moved to another companies.
Speaker:And if it's something that is like out of our expertise then I call you
Speaker:to help to understand the business implications and help clients to build
Speaker:the right strategy to build the right solution, to build the right use case.
Speaker:This is a constant problem.
Speaker:i face is, when you tell people, let's take a step back and let's make
Speaker:sure you're doing the right thing.
Speaker:It's very difficult because the project is set into motion, right?
Speaker:Everyone's in the mindset of, we need to deliver this.
Speaker:And then they continue delivering and they do a great job, managing time, budget
Speaker:projects and projects delivered at the end of the day, end result is not delivered.
Speaker:I'll give you an example.
Speaker:We talked about chatbot, right?
Speaker:So let's say that, the CEO decides we're going to implement a chatbot, right?
Speaker:And they go buy a solution.
Speaker:Maybe if you take a step back, the better way to do it, and you take
Speaker:a stakeholder approach, the better way to do it is, let's take a step
Speaker:back and decide, okay, what do we need for the chatbot to be efficient?
Speaker:So maybe the first stage of digital transformation
Speaker:would be, let's collect data.
Speaker:Because the chatbot needs to have data to operate efficiently.
Speaker:If you just take the step back instead of rushing into an AI transformation,
Speaker:you would have probably transformed your business internally to start collating
Speaker:data, through technology so that over two years you build up enough data.
Speaker:To then, have a more reasonable chatbot, for example.
Speaker:So that's why I feel the ecosystem approach is so important.
Speaker:We have three layers of ecosystem players, right?
Speaker:So we don't only talk about customers.
Speaker:Everyone talk about customer or internal customer, right?
Speaker:Which is all fine, but there's three layers.
Speaker:So one is, who do we serve as an organization?
Speaker:We serve our shareholders and we serve our customers.
Speaker:Then the second layer is who enables us to serve our customers.
Speaker:And that would be staff, that would be management, that there
Speaker:would be partners as well, potentially, and suppliers, right?
Speaker:And then we take a step back is who influences how we serve our customers.
Speaker:And that will be, the shareholders, the board.
Speaker:And then the governance at the board level and also regulators
Speaker:play a huge role, right?
Speaker:And to some extent competitors, because competitors will
Speaker:influence what you do, right?
Speaker:So for each problem, you have to identify who are the three stakeholders in the
Speaker:value chain and then decide, okay, which one is the best one to work with.
Speaker:So in the chatbot example, instead of working at the customer level, Let's
Speaker:start working at the enabler level and maybe at the influencer level.
Speaker:So we work on, okay, how do we collect the data?
Speaker:How do we get our staff trained up so that they can put the right data
Speaker:into the system, etc. And also what are the regulatory implications of it?
Speaker:So you work at the second and the third level first, and then
Speaker:further down the line once you've got a better understanding.
Speaker:implement the AI chatbot.
Speaker:And that's the ecosystem concept that, I've developed.
Speaker:But as I say, it's very hard to get people to agree to take a step back.
Speaker:And re look at the direction they're going in.
Speaker:And if they did that, I think we'd have a lower chance of failure.
Speaker:You know, 70 percent of digital transformations fail according to
Speaker:McKinsey and Harvard and various research.
Speaker:And this statistic has been around not last year or the year before.
Speaker:It's been around for a few years now.
Speaker:which is interesting.
Speaker:What's the cause of the 70 percent from your perspective?
Speaker:Why are 70 percent of projects failing?
Speaker:I've given you my version.
Speaker:It'll be interesting to understand from your perspective, how
Speaker:you develop the solution.
Speaker:Yet the solution fails.
Speaker:I think that the core reason is this weak preparation on the business case.
Speaker:Applying it without not only the preparation, without understanding
Speaker:the purpose and the reason why you do it might be challenging.
Speaker:And I have another example, similar to yours with chatbots
Speaker:when they were like our client, but we didn't do any AI for them.
Speaker:We focused on another area.
Speaker:So I didn't even know that they developed this chatbot because
Speaker:they didn't tell it to us because they decided to follow my approach.
Speaker:So they just bought external solution.
Speaker:They launched it quickly, but then they realized.
Speaker:That as a result of these chatbots, their customers are not happy so
Speaker:the engagement dropped and the level of complaints increased.
Speaker:So they just uh, wrote, wrote uh, off this chatbot completely after
Speaker:a couple of months of its usage.
Speaker:So for me, it's the example where, yeah, just buying the solution.
Speaker:And that's my favorite one, actually.
Speaker:Because every CIO has the challenge, whatever it needs to buy the external
Speaker:solution or implement something internally by versus builds.
Speaker:So all the external platforms, they are very great on the
Speaker:level when they are being sold.
Speaker:To you, right?
Speaker:Beautiful.
Speaker:Solving all the issues quickly, effectively, but then there will
Speaker:be so much pain if you'll be going out of core use cases that
Speaker:are supported by this platform.
Speaker:So if you are using kit for those use cases that are supported out
Speaker:of the box, then it'll be easy.
Speaker:And if you need.
Speaker:To do something more complicated and customize the solution.
Speaker:Then you realize that it is associated with much higher costs due to look
Speaker:into the specific technology, their architecture approach their vision of
Speaker:how it should be developed, et cetera.
Speaker:So for me build versus buy if you are doing consideration
Speaker:of which platform to build.
Speaker:It's very important to provide the very detailed view into it, not
Speaker:just follow the, what the sales are telling to you, but try it
Speaker:for your most difficult use cases.
Speaker:Think how you want to use it strategically in a couple of years
Speaker:to understand if those use cases will be supported by the platform and keep
Speaker:in mind that in most of the cases, customizing those platforms is like very.
Speaker:Very expensive uh, and very time consuming.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:Any solution, even if you're looking at the most smallest
Speaker:organization or at the individual level is never going to fit your.
Speaker:In your own use case, a hundred percent, there's always going to be
Speaker:some elements of customization, even Excel or Word or whatever, or we
Speaker:all use it in different ways, right?
Speaker:And it doesn't fit our lifestyle a hundred percent.
Speaker:So I still have to use another app or I still have to do something outside of
Speaker:Word or Excel or whatever the case is.
Speaker:Build versus buy is interesting.
Speaker:In my world, if you're down the wrong path, you're down the wrong path, right?
Speaker:Whether you build a buy, buying might accelerate the failure quicker.
Speaker:Building might get you a little bit, a more customized solution, and you
Speaker:may be able to pivot very quickly.
Speaker:But you're still going down the wrong path, right?
Speaker:For me, again, like there's no solution that is similar bullets to any problem.
Speaker:So you still need to do your homework and first understand what business
Speaker:problem you want to achieve and how you are achieving it on conceptual level.
Speaker:And then you are.
Speaker:Jumping into technology for me, like by is a great solution.
Speaker:If the platform supports 80%, maybe 70 percent of your use cases, but if
Speaker:the platform will be supporting only like 20 percent of your use cases,
Speaker:then it's very likely that you are.
Speaker:buy will turn on into builds on a very unfavorable conditions because you'll be,
Speaker:you'll need to pay for the platform and then you'll need to pay for customizing.
Speaker:It's usually the premium rates to do it.
Speaker:But again to be able to even identify whatever it supports, 80
Speaker:or 20 percent of your use cases, you should have those use cases.
Speaker:And that might be another reason why digital transformation fails
Speaker:because company identify one or.
Speaker:To use cases, the core use cases, and then they make all the decisions
Speaker:based on those core use cases.
Speaker:And then throughout the journey, they realized that they have another like
Speaker:20 is cases that they didn't consider.
Speaker:And now they need to integrate them into into their organization,
Speaker:like into this technology.
Speaker:Basically.
Speaker:So I think that there should be some agile on the way of how the things
Speaker:are being implemented but there should be also a bit of waterfall on the
Speaker:way of how things are being planned
Speaker:as interesting.
Speaker:In my world, obviously, I would say.
Speaker:The main reason for digital transformation failure is the first case.
Speaker:People are doing the wrong thing, right?
Speaker:So I know a lot of people talk about culture and agile and
Speaker:about project management and about buying and governance.
Speaker:And there's lots of theory out there.
Speaker:But I guess, if you're moving down the wrong path, then, that's
Speaker:the biggest cause of failure.
Speaker:Of course, if you're moving down the right path, there are obviously some frictions
Speaker:that could have an impact of not yielding the results of digital transformation.
Speaker:But I think in my world, obviously, you know, I Kind of urge the executives to
Speaker:sit back and look at this 360 degree view of the ecosystem and then make sure
Speaker:you're focusing on the right problem firstly, and then prioritizing that.
Speaker:So first you work on quick wins.
Speaker:So try and get something where the impact of it on profitability
Speaker:on customer, et cetera, is going to be high, but the amount of
Speaker:effort needed is going to be low.
Speaker:And those are ones that are quick wins, low hanging fruits
Speaker:that you should go after first.
Speaker:But anyway, coming back to the podcast itself, when the podcast is
Speaker:called Impact with Digital, right?
Speaker:In my world, I work across sort of development and development agencies.
Speaker:And I can see, in the world of finance and financial inclusion, I can see
Speaker:how technology can not only benefit organizations, but also benefit the
Speaker:wider society, environment, et cetera.
Speaker:So maybe from your perspective, in a good scenario?
Speaker:When people implement technology, what are the benefits they
Speaker:get out of it business wise?
Speaker:And what are the benefits they make to their environment, to
Speaker:their community, for example?
Speaker:That's a really good and broad topic.
Speaker:I support your view about finance, some use cases that I've seen
Speaker:from our clients, for example.
Speaker:One of the platform was to issue cards and financial products in effective way.
Speaker:So they are available for people who are like who are who are not scored
Speaker:by banks high enough to provide credit cards, like credit cards or debit.
Speaker:Cards for people who are not seen as trusted by banks to issue the cards.
Speaker:So usually it's someone who is like either a low paid job or a regular job, but they
Speaker:still need access to financial products.
Speaker:If you are taking, thinking about another industries or there is another
Speaker:great example which is publicly available, which is associated with
Speaker:AI, not related to finance, but.
Speaker:Microsoft, and that's for AI, you really need a lot of data centers and electricity
Speaker:to be consumed for the technology to advance and to support clients.
Speaker:So what Microsoft does, they use heat that's been produced out of their
Speaker:data centers to deliver it to houses that are in the close proximity.
Speaker:And it's like that way provide this infrastructure of heating those houses,
Speaker:which is An example of this concept of recyclable production, which is
Speaker:also very important personalization.
Speaker:I think that's that's another area which could contribute into like
Speaker:sustainable, for example, there are startup companies who can the problem
Speaker:is that you are buying a lot of clothes and usually people are doing
Speaker:these just to make one or two photos.
Speaker:for Instagram, et cetera.
Speaker:But the technology could deliver like the digital for you.
Speaker:So you can use it for like your digital experience and you don't
Speaker:even need to go to shop and buy it.
Speaker:So this item other serve.
Speaker:Shouldn't be produced at all.
Speaker:So to support this, like very limited use case.
Speaker:And I think that what do you mean?
Speaker:Is it a digital clothes that, that you, yeah, digital clothes.
Speaker:It happens it happens now and AI can generate it.
Speaker:So what did you tell yourself?
Speaker:You're filming yourself and you have a different kind
Speaker:of clothes based on correct.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then you
Speaker:can you can get the picture out of it.
Speaker:If you want to post it in Instagram and brands can deliver clothes that
Speaker:way or Furniture so they don't need to produce it just to put in showrooms.
Speaker:So your comments decide which one you want to use, but there might
Speaker:be digital showroom, so you log in.
Speaker:And I think that.
Speaker:Ikea already provides it I just need to double check.
Speaker:I'm not sure, but yeah.
Speaker:So you can just yeah play with the room and decide which
Speaker:furniture you want to put.
Speaker:So you can upload the photo of your room or choose using generative AI,
Speaker:choose the concept that you want to build, and then you can just.
Speaker:By the actual furniture.
Speaker:So they don't need to overproduce something to put in showrooms and they
Speaker:don't need to support those showrooms at all which is also associated with
Speaker:the additional electricity, et cetera.
Speaker:What else?
Speaker:Education is great example.
Speaker:I think that's AI a lot of people, they are like worrying that AI will reduce
Speaker:the quality of education, but in my opinion, it can increase it because now
Speaker:teachers are overloaded so they don't provide enough personalization for like
Speaker:enough attention to every particular.
Speaker:person, students which AI could help to improve.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I'm a big believer and I've seen this and, emerging markets, as I work in the
Speaker:fintech space and I've definitely seen.
Speaker:evidence of how fintech can drive financial inclusion and now green,
Speaker:green finance, for example, using technology can again lead to more
Speaker:the environmental solutions because people are getting the right amount of
Speaker:funding for these kind of solutions.
Speaker:I have another small example.
Speaker:I just remembered from my like day to day life.
Speaker:So in Google Maps if you are using it as a GPS navigator, it now supports you
Speaker:in a way to show you like which route would be the most effective from the
Speaker:fuel consumption perspective, right?
Speaker:So it can guide you in the best way to minimize the fuel usage.
Speaker:From point A to point B. And that's not only about cost saving, but it's about
Speaker:ecology less fuel usage produces less pollutions, which is also important.
Speaker:No, absolutely.
Speaker:Moving on, what's the future.
Speaker:We're now seeing a massive trend in AI and, every country wants
Speaker:to be the best country for AI and I'm sure AI is here to stay.
Speaker:What's the next big wave in technology, in digital?
Speaker:I think that AI is on a peak of hype at the moment, so there will be some
Speaker:decline in the coming years when companies will realize that it's
Speaker:not a one size fits all solution.
Speaker:And then it will go on a plateau
Speaker:I'm pretty impressed with what's happening in quantum computing area,
Speaker:for example, it's still like on the prototyping phase, but I think that
Speaker:in the next five to 10 years maybe more, it will have the potential
Speaker:to disrupt the whole computation.
Speaker:Touch every any aspect of technology.
Speaker:So what would be the benefit of that?
Speaker:So quantum computing.
Speaker:So assuming, quantum computing is now widely available,
Speaker:what's the benefit of that?
Speaker:It will allow to adopt digital technologies in even more like
Speaker:effective way and on a higher scale.
Speaker:The potential for them is to be more effective than traditional
Speaker:semiconductor chips or computers.
Speaker:I think that technologies will play a more significant role in ESG in
Speaker:particular in the next couple of years.
Speaker:I think that like AI itself this Despite that there will be some decline.
Speaker:It'll make a significant impact in optimizing, in helping people to
Speaker:implement their routine use their routine and focus on more creative work.
Speaker:So basically acting as copilots or as assistant that automates your
Speaker:routine and allows you to focus on things that are more complicated
Speaker:more interesting, more challenging.
Speaker:Or more meaningful for you.
Speaker:I think that's that's where technology will also play a key
Speaker:role in the next couple of years.
Speaker:What else could I see in terms of trends?
Speaker:I think there will be more of robotics and broader use cases of robotics.
Speaker:Autonomous driving is one example.
Speaker:Another one, there will be some robots very likely favorite with
Speaker:AI that will be, automating some routine physical activities.
Speaker:So not only digital activities, which is happening already, but also some
Speaker:physical activities like cleaning your house, cooking, cleaning house, cooking.
Speaker:So not those robots that are available now, but some that are more sophisticated.
Speaker:And and I've seen some of them being, produced already in countries like Japan.
Speaker:In China, yeah.
Speaker:I know China has produced quite a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You don't have to clean your house anymore.
Speaker:You don't have to think anymore.
Speaker:Interesting interesting evolution for humanity, yeah, but
Speaker:If you'll think about it, you don't like to clean your house anyway.
Speaker:Yeah, but at least you get a bit of exercise, right?
Speaker:If you look at, if you look at gaming, for example, and young
Speaker:people, young people don't go outside.
Speaker:They're putting on more weight.
Speaker:They eat more unhealthy, sometimes technology has to be balanced, right?
Speaker:So if you've got AI robots now doing, all your work, means
Speaker:you don't get any exercises.
Speaker:You can play games all day.
Speaker:And again, if you're not thinking, because, AI chatbots
Speaker:are doing all the work.
Speaker:Then, your brain development might suffer.
Speaker:I suppose it's a balanced approach, right?
Speaker:But chatbots can also play the role of coaches.
Speaker:To give you access to the knowledge that's not available now.
Speaker:No, obviously, and I think there's, there's definite benefits and obviously
Speaker:I'm that's what the podcast is all about.
Speaker:But I think, we just got to caution that's going to be a balance.
Speaker:And I think AI if you see AI and technology as an instrument for helping
Speaker:you do things more effectively, that's a better outcome than for example, AI
Speaker:doing my work So if you're producing an article, doing your homework, if you're
Speaker:a school child, developing solutions.
Speaker:Instead of taking what AI gives you, it's a starting point, right?
Speaker:It's like a calculator, right?
Speaker:A calculator is used to calculate a certain part of the equation.
Speaker:Not, to give you the full answer,
Speaker:correct?
Speaker:And it's again it's designed to automate the things that
Speaker:you don't want to do anyway,
Speaker:so of course you can do the same way using traditional way, which will take much
Speaker:more time for you than using calculator.
Speaker:The problem in our society from my perspective is that people are like pretty
Speaker:busy all the time and they might not be busy like with with meaningful things.
Speaker:So if AI will automate some routine so you'll be focusing less on the tasks that
Speaker:could be automated and more on, I don't know, spending the time with your family
Speaker:or doing some meaningful job for you.
Speaker:I think that will make people happier.
Speaker:And That you make people's lives more meaningful at all.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is it raised a very good point because the creativity, I guess has been
Speaker:lost over the years because how busy people are and, it's a crazy life.
Speaker:So going back to the creative ideas, the next I guess jobs coming out, with
Speaker:a new idea, machines can't do that because machines rely on historical data.
Speaker:So I guess if you're freed up to think a little bit outside the box and meditate
Speaker:and et cetera, you'll come up with good, better solutions for society in future.
Speaker:That's very good point.
Speaker:And I had similar conversation just yesterday on the topic of whatever AI
Speaker:could replace workers or humans at all.
Speaker:And I think you are right.
Speaker:So being human means that you can.
Speaker:Analyze, but then you can also synthesize, right?
Speaker:Create something new and machines, AI, they're mostly focused on analyzing.
Speaker:And even those that are like generative AI.
Speaker:So they they operate on a level of mathematical statistics, right?
Speaker:So they've trained on a lot of data and then they just.
Speaker:produce the most probable outcome to your request based on all
Speaker:this data that is available.
Speaker:But they are not thinking they are not creative and they don't
Speaker:have those like capabilities yet.
Speaker:And I think that's the reason why technology will not replace human.
Speaker:And of course the idea of this technology is to replicate human brain.
Speaker:And it's now like we are moving to.
Speaker:science fiction area already.
Speaker:But even if you think about another animals among all of them, it's only human
Speaker:who is able to create who is able to have those advanced cognitive capabilities.
Speaker:So if you train AI to the level of Hugh, to the level of brain, right?
Speaker:But it's it's likely that it's not only like brain that makes human.
Speaker:So maybe it's also something related to genetics.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Otherwise there would be like more animals like humans who are able to like homo
Speaker:sapiens, who are able to reason, who are able to create things, who are able to
Speaker:build the nature around them, not just leave within the nature, you understand?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:It's a good philosophical discussion, about consciousness, and, what makes us
Speaker:human is this consciousness behind us.
Speaker:It's something that drives us, right?
Speaker:And that compels us to produce things and make the world a better place, hopefully.
Speaker:In closing, do you have, what's your message for a CEO or a C suite
Speaker:around digital transformation?
Speaker:What's your key takeaway?
Speaker:What's your one message that you want to leave them with?
Speaker:I think that based on what I see and based on what I understand, I think that every
Speaker:business and every company, they need to think about digital transformation.
Speaker:Of course, there is the question of how to do it correctly.
Speaker:And that's where like you can help.
Speaker:Other companies can help, we can help, it is necessary and there
Speaker:is no choice for every business and for every company to adopt it.
Speaker:And I'm not talking about AI only, I'm talking about broader technologies.
Speaker:And I think that now we are reaching the point where those technologies
Speaker:are not only efficiency gainers.
Speaker:As it was in the past, but also they could differentiate your business and
Speaker:they could create new revenue streams.
Speaker:So basically they could give you the competitive advantage which we
Speaker:see like often and it happenings more and more like Uber that
Speaker:disrupted the whole taxi industry.
Speaker:And they're like.
Speaker:Tons of examples similar to it.
Speaker:So basically you've got no choice, and if you don't do
Speaker:anything, you'll be disrupted.
Speaker:Very likely, yeah, eaten by your successors and incumbents who
Speaker:are maybe even smaller companies, but more innovative and they'll
Speaker:just take over your customers.
Speaker:Andrey, thank you.
Speaker:How can listeners get a hold of you?
Speaker:How can they get in touch with you?
Speaker:I'm very active on LinkedIn.
Speaker:I often publish a lot of content on AI there and have news letter,
Speaker:because that's my key area of interest of personal interest at the moment.
Speaker:So it's possible to connect with me on LinkedIn or email me directly.
Speaker:I'm always happy to talk and discuss or brainstorm ideas or help with
Speaker:some projects if there is a need.
Speaker:We'll put a link to your LinkedIn.
Speaker:In the show notes.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you very much for being our first guest and hopefully in coming
Speaker:back again at some point, we can discuss things as your journey into AI
Speaker:progresses, but thank you for your time.
Speaker:It's been a fascinating discussion and we look forward to chatting to you again.
Speaker:Thank you, Jay.
Speaker:It was indeed great discussion.
Speaker:Thanks for your time and looking forward to talk more on it.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:Take care.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Bye bye.
