Asad Abbas
Recently, my colleague, Kehad Snydewel, wrote an article about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts every sector and challenges well-established businesses. A significant and surprising shift is the challenge a company like Google faces. OpenAI announced its entry into the search market with SearchGPT. This is the company that brought us ChatGPT. They are introducing an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information across the Internet. To give it some context, this search engine and the AI and computing power behind it have Google and Microsoft’s Bing quaking in their boots. AI is challenging the hegemony of established companies; this is a boardroom issue.
The SearchGPT search engine starts with a large textbox that prompts the user, “What are you looking for?” Its search results don’t just give a plain list of links; the search engine organizes and makes sense of them. The search engine summarizes its findings and presents a short description, followed by an attribution link. The next generation of search engines, giving relevant and useful information, goes beyond what present engines do. Google is playing catch-up.
The idea that Google, synonymous with ‘searching’ has to worry about being surpassed by a small new player because of AI, is incredible. This is exactly what happened to Yahoo and AltaVista search engines when Google arrived. Today, it is search engines, and tomorrow, it is the financial services industry, followed by the healthcare sector. The old ways are no more, as AI’s sheer computing power and machine learning capabilities will upend the status quo. Within a year or two, you can become obsolete. This is not something to be alarmed about, but needs our full and undivided attention. It must also be on the agenda at the boardroom level, not just something that the ICT department tinkers with.
AI cannot be ignored if a company is serious about maintaining its competitive edge and providing quality products and services to its clients. Namibian companies need to embrace and embed it in their organization. The question is, how do you go about it and how do you ensure that you are using Artificial Intelligence applications in such a manner that they will complement your present operational activities? Namibian organizations need to compensate for the lack of staffing, and smaller budgets and this is where AI comes into its own. Size no longer matters, innovation, improving efficiency, and delivering exceptional customer experiences are the key. If Google can be challenged by a tiny company in comparison, there is hope for us all, and AI is a key player in this journey, ensuring exceptional customer experiences.
Large organizations leverage AI to ensure that departments work together, and hospitals are starting to use it to speed up and improve the diagnosis of patients. The more AI is used, the better it becomes, improving cancer detection rates in patients, for example. Information and data are harnessed in such a way that it creates self-learning AI tools within the organization. This is why the C-level suite must focus on it, as the urgency and importance of AI in the business landscape cannot be overstated.
One of AI’s advantages for smaller organizations is its ability to enhance decision-making processes. AI-powered analytics process vast amounts of data in real-time, providing valuable insights that help SMEs understand customer preferences, predict market trends, and optimize operational efficiencies. Just as OpenAi’s SearchGPT may be the Google killer, the next giant killer could come from Namibia.
Asad Abbas is a manager for software services at Green Enterprise Solutions (Pty) Ltd, a Namibian company that provides information and communication technology (ICT) services to corporations.
