Philip Gamey, CEO of Ghana’s maiden generative AI company, Web and Software, is calling for immediate steps to be taken to commence a nationwide conversation around Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure that country does not become left behind in yet another technology revolution.
He told journalists that because of globalization, the drivers of digital transformation are private corporate entities rather than governments, but in Ghana today, corporate organizations are largely oblivious of or apathetic towards AI and that is a threat to the future of corporate Ghana and the country as a whole.
“It is concerning to note that out of some 54 companies surveyed in May 2023, only 2 answered “YES” to the question, ‘Has Artificial Intelligence ever been mentioned or discussed at management/board meetings?’.
The remaining 52 companies, including banks, other financial institutions, some service providers, media houses and others, said AI has never been mentioned in their board/management meetings, and that constitutes 96% of the total, Philip Gamey noted.
He said even with the two who said AI has been mentioned in their board/management meeting, the discussion was only around how AI will impact roles/jobs in the company, and not necessarily about how it will benefit the organization.
According to him, this stark reality shows that most companies are not ready to adopt AI, adding that it was depressing for the team at Web and Software so they just quit the survey after the 54 calls.
He believes that reason corporate entities don’t have a drive for AI is because of the wrong notion that AI would only require investment into platforms but not in the people and process to work effectively with the platforms to ensure a full benefit thereof.
Philip Gamey is therefore urging corporate entities to start mainstreaming conversations around how to invest not only in platforms, but also in people, and processes to ensure an effective symbiotic relationship between human resource and AI for maximum benefit.
“To achieve significant financial benefits from Generative AI, companies must look beyond automation and focus on learning and organizational transformation. The mix of use cases should include automation, decision making, option generation, insight generation, and evaluation.
“A symbiotic relationship between human resource and AI is necessary, adapting as needed to changing context, circumstances, and scenarios,” he said.
He also noted that, to harness the full benefits of AI, companies must identify use cases that differentiate their organization, adapt organizational structures, and prepare employees to support the deployment of AI, adding that designing policies to set up ethical guardrails and legal protections is also very essential.
Philip Gamey observed that possible areas of concern for companies may include mass deception, job loss, ethics, copyright, and bias in terms of the information fed into the AI platform.
But, he argued that the benefits of AI far outweighs the concerns and corporate organizations can effectively fashions strategies around the concerns if they start the conversation now and engage experts to guide them on this path.
He therefore invited corporate entities to take advantage of the free session offered by Web and Software for top management on how to leverage AI for growth.
“As Ghana’s first generative AI company, Web and Software Limited invites companies to take advantage of its FREE session for businesses and senior management to consider how organizations can leverage AI for growth, superior performance, and productivity in ways that were never thought possible in the past,” he said.
Touching on some of the obvious benefits of AI, he mentioned how AI was the driver for the unprecedented speed in the creation of the Modena Covid-19 vaccine, within just 44 days, as against the traditional 10 years required for vaccines to be accepted as safe for humans.
“Modena engaged a software engineer who use AI to achieve this feat while the traditional science-based vaccines were still in the works,” he noted.
He also cited how a Fintech like Lemonade has revolutionalised the insurance sector via that use of AI to able to verify information faster and deliver claims timeously, unlike the traditional insurance companies which take weeks and sometimes months before they are able to pay claims.
Indeed, Ghana’s leading non-telco mobile money platform, Zeepay has deployed predictive AI verify the details of senders and receivers in the direct to wallet remittance platform to be able to pre-empt and prevent money laundering and other forms of digital fraud on that route.
Philip Gamey believes the time has come for corporate Ghana to quit the usual way of implementing strategies and waiting to evaluate them either mid-year or end of year, saying that AI enables a more focused decision making from that start of the year, and also drives real-time monitoring and evaluation along the way.
This, he said, enables management to immediately know if the strategy is working or not, so they can make the necessary adjustments along the way and guarantee a better result even before year end.
He is therefore encouraging corporate Ghana not to shy away from AI but go for it now, adding that the concerns around job loss is real, but it can be resolved by training affected staff to train the AI tolls so they can meet the aspirations of the organizations.
