Riding the wave of artificial intelligence (AI) carries risks, as scientists and tech figures have warned all year. Nevertheless, implementation in the business world, albeit slow, seems to be an inevitable fate. Benefits range from automating more mechanical tasks like report writing to personalizing customer service. Not to be forgotten is the potential to accelerate innovation, save costs and improve employee satisfaction. This is reflected in a global report from consulting firm KPMG, which shows that more than half of managers surveyed – 55% of 2,100 – believe incorporating AI is critical to achieving business goals over the next few years will be significant. next three years.
The study highlights that the private sector is increasingly relying on technology bets to generate value and differentiate themselves from the competition. Almost three years ago, companies were faced with the challenge of digitizing a large part of their processes when the pandemic broke out. With the introduction of generative AI bots, history is now at least partially repeating itself.
Although the development of AI has been in the background for more than a decade – in 2010, a group of scientists had a desire to develop what would become DeepMind, Google's AI – it took a while for the Das to land Generative AI program ChatGPT developed by Open AI sparked a revolution. This appearance was supported by the release of a number of programs from various companies – such as Bard (Alphabet), Grok from None seems to have won so far.
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Now it no longer seems like a science fiction story to share working time with a text-generating bot (program) like the one that accompanied the protagonist of the film Her (2013). Eva García, partner in charge of data analytics and AI at KPMG in Spain, explains that companies using tools based on this technology have managed to automate processes that previously required mainly time and little technical knowledge. The vast majority of procedures can now be written, analyzed or summarized by AI bots. García emphasizes that this technology also allows employees to receive information more quickly and in a more orderly manner, although he emphasizes that “the quality has not yet reached a sufficient level of maturity”. However, it is increasingly becoming a necessary tool for tasks such as personalized customer care, identifying consumption patterns and inventory management.
Despite everything, its use in Spain is still limited. Only 8% of companies admit to having proactively integrated AI into daily processes. This, according to García, is due, on the one hand, to the scarcity of technological profiles capable of teaching the company's personnel and, on the other hand, to the prejudices that accompany a technology: a kind of “fear”, explains the expert, which distances companies from these tools .
57% of executives surveyed in Spain – from around 100 companies – say their progress has been delayed by doubts about how AI makes decisions (a figure similar to the global result of 55%). Companies are concerned about the use of internal company data. The litigation is taking place in two main ways: one where AI can introduce certain biases – race or gender – in decision-making, and the other involving privacy issues.
The ethical dilemma
Some Spanish companies, such as Redeia – the former Red Eléctrica – They decided to veto the use of ChatGPT after warning about “possible risks related to the protection of information.” Telefónica only allows this if the account has been closed and controlled by the operator itself. At BBVA, on the other hand, use is generally prohibited, but employees are allowed to access the bot via authorization. “Legal teams need to work with business, innovation and information security teams to coherently define responsible policy, taking into account legal but also ethical parameters,” emphasizes Noemí Brito, partner in charge of legal operations at KPMG.
Although the debate is progressing slowly, the first results are emerging. Less than a week ago, the European Union set a milestone by drafting the first official draft aimed at fully regulating the use of AI in the region. The text, which will come into force at the end of 2026, is mainly aimed at restricting biometric categorization systems (by political, religious, philosophical beliefs or by sexual orientation or race); to systems for expanding or creating facial databases and recognizing emotions in the workplace. For generative AI models such as ChatGPT, the legislation instead aims to ensure that the data used by these programs indicates whether the material is a product of AI, while respecting copyright law.
Other basic technologies
Not everything is about the benefits and challenges that AI has presented over the last year. Other types of technologies have also become crucial to progress towards digitalization. One of them is the use of large amounts of data (big data) and its application in decision-making. 17% of respondents say that they have started using this technology in their daily operations and that it has improved the economic benefits. Companies in the logistics and parcel industry, for example, admit that the massive use of data is becoming one of the mainstays of the industry.
The companies examined in the study also admit that they have significantly increased the use of Software as a Service (SaaS) – a modality in which a program is used on the Internet instead of downloading and installing it on computers, which is usually required Subscription is paid —. This cloud computing business category is becoming an increasingly attractive alternative. 61% of Spanish companies say they have increased their profits after implementation and two thirds trust that the opportunities offered by SaaS technologies outweigh the associated risks.
KPMG emphasizes that companies must learn to optimize the management of these types of resources. “This is an important lesson that should be implemented, particularly in the context of budget cuts, as digital transformation must aim to increase profitability,” the report concludes.
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