Any solution without AI embedded in it will fall behind

AI: Coming soon to an industry near you

Dr Jassim Haji, President of International Group of Artificial Intelligence

Gavin Allen: Which industries are being transformed most by AI right now?

Jassim Haji: Finance and healthcare are seeing a return on investment. So are industries such as oil and gas, aluminum, and shipping. They can see an immediate return, rather than having to wait a few generations.

Any solution without AI embedded in it will fall behind. But you don't have a lot of time to start doing your research and development. So, whatever is available for you and your partners, you have to use it. And you have to be able to transform immediately. It's not like a normal software transformation, where you can say, "Well, I'll add to it gradually."

Gavin Allen: I think you ran IT at Gulf Air for several years. How are AI and digitalization transforming commercial aviation?

Jassim Haji: In aviation, it’s more about cost avoidance than making money. Your fuel is a lot of your cost. If you can get your routes managed smarter with AI; if you can avoid delays; if you can get the passengers on board quicker through different intelligences; if you can do repair and predictive maintenance…

You know, in the airline industry, people say, "Do maintenance on the engine and on the tires every three to six months." But nobody has been able to put the data together and say, "Well, it's not six months; let's do it every nine months and we’ll save a lot of money."

Gavin Allen: What can a company like Huawei do to help businesses make the transition to an AI-led world?

Jassim Haji: I’m already impressed by how AI is integrated into every part of Huawei’s business. So I think it’s going to be key, and I think Huawei is moving in the right direction.

Gavin Allen: Ever since the 1960s, we've had this hope that AI was going to transform everything. And we've gone through peaks of expectation and troughs of disillusionment. Are you confident that this time it really will change everything?

Jassim Haji: AI has had two winters when people stopped investing in it and said it wasn't worthwhile.

But at that time, AI was being tested in labs and universities. Today, the vast implementations of AI in industry are irreversible. You can't take away a solution that you’ve given to your employees and your customers and say, "Well, we can't afford it, we have to stop there." There’s no going back. As things stand now, many industries are unavoidably moving towards it, whether the industry requires it or not.