Martin Duffy has been working in the technology industry for almost three decades, holding senior positions with US software giant SAS before moving into consulting with PwC. 

During that time, he has seen everything from the dot-com bubble to the rise of social media giants to the advent of pioneering new technologies. However, he has also witnessed the hype, the multiple fads, and the numerous false dawns. 

In his view, generative AI (GenAI) is different. The way Duffy sees it, GenAI has the capacity to fundamentally change how companies, and therefore, how people work. 

In the past, IT solutions were designed to solve particular problems or individual issues. GenAI, he says, can be applied across all different areas of a company – from customer service to risk, and from finance to regulation. 

If implemented correctly, Duffy believes it can be a game changer for businesses, both for how they operate and also for their bottom line.  

“Traditionally, Ireland has always watched what the rest of the world was doing in technology and then has followed,” he said. “But what we are starting to see is engagement levels on GenAI by senior Irish business people that I have not seen for any other technology before. And I have been in IT for 30 years.  Organisations are starting to take it seriously. 

“We are seeing a very, very high percentage of people coming to us saying that they are looking at implementing GenAI in the next 12 months.”

But while many companies see the potential, they also see the pitfalls, particularly around safety and governance. Plus, reshaping how a company operates, regardless of size, is a significant body of work. Understandably, Duffy accepts that many companies are fearful of moving too fast, or are apprehensive about using AI in their operations. 

And this is something that Duffy, along with his colleagues at PwC, are now trying to deal with.

Hands-on and helpful

Earlier this week, PwC announced that it was launching a new GenAI Business Centre. Enabled by a collaboration with Microsoft, the centre is designed to help companies determine how to adopt new AI technologies into their operations. 

PwC said the investment comes at a time of  “huge opportunity” for businesses but also at a time when technology needs to be applied with great responsibility. The Irish centre followed over a €1 billion investment by the consultancy firm globally, through its relationship with Microsoft, to expand and scale AI and drive human-led, tech-powered transformation.

“We are working globally with Microsoft. So, what we’ve launched this week is the localisation of that and bringing it to the Irish market,” said Aisling Curtis, market leader, strategic alliances, with PwC Ireland. 

According to Curtis, the centre will help clients with their “GenAI transformation, and help them  understand where to apply AI in  their business.”

Crucially, she said it was designed to be interactive rather than theoretical – a place where business leaders and executives can come and see first-hand how AI can assist their businesses. 

“It is designed to help companies understand what their business transformation requirements are, what problems they have in their organisation that GenAI could be applied to, and to actually help improve or help fix,” Curtis said. 

“It is a relaxed environment where they can work through the issues in a very private way and help understand the areas that would unblock issues for their transformation. The second part of the centre  is that they’ll be able to see GenAI come alive, where they can see the technology being demonstrated. So if they have a problem, for instance, around productivity, they’ll be able to see some of the examples that we’re trying to fix using GenAI in action.”

Duffy said the new centre is aimed at providing businesses with practical steps that they can take to help get the benefit of GenAI. “It’s a hands-on environment for business leaders to actually try these technologies. And from that, to understand what they can do. It’s like instead of watching a holiday programme, you are going on holiday,” he said. 

Duffy and Curtis both agreed that companies needed to onboard new GenAI technologies on a phased basis in specific areas as opposed to rolling it out across the entire enterprise. 

“Because this is a capability that can be used in so many different areas, the first thing any organisation needs to do is gain focus around where to start – don’t try and do an enterprise level,” Curtis said. 

Duffy added “start in a small area. Learn how the change can be implemented. Because at its core, this is not a technology implementation. This is a change process. It requires people to change the way that they are working; it requires them to have new skills. So if you start in a small area, focus on that. Understand what changes are required, and that will set you up for enterprise success.”

Curtis said that the new centre is designed to help companies figure out how GenAI can help their operations, and then put in place the processes to make it happen. She concluded: “We will also be helping on the technology implementation.  Our job is to help design the strategy and then work with companies right through the full journey in terms of technology implementation.” 

Our survey says…

Over the last number of months, PwC has surveyed nearly 80 Irish C-suite business leaders, including CEOs, heads of finance, heads of technology and heads of risk. The aim of the survey was to understand how AI and GenAI are impacting Irish business, and to get a snapshot of how businesses plan to use AI in the future. 

According to the PwC survey, a large majority of Irish businesses are positive about the potential impact from GenAI adoption for the economy and for individual businesses. However, fewer than seven per cent of respondents said that they had rolled out AI on a large scale in their organisations, a figure that compares to 26 per cent in a recent PwC survey among US executives.

A quarter of business leaders admitted that they have no plans to use Gen AI, such as ChatGPT, in the year ahead, although 61 per cent said they are considering using it to a limited degree. More than half of the leaders surveyed said that they are not confident in their organisation’s ability to assess the return on investment on current AI initiatives. Where investments were made, 92 per cent said that they did not realise value over the past year or that the value realised was small.  

Close to three quarters said that AI would benefit the economy, while more than 80 per cent said it would increase jobs or have no net impact on jobs over the coming years. 

“We spoke to leaders across 24 sectors – CEOs, CFOs, CTOs… And broadly, it was very positive. The large majority actually viewed that GenAI was overall positive in terms of the economy, but also another majority in terms of this significant impact on their organisation. But critically, 82 per cent said that it would either increase jobs, or that it would have no net impact,” Curtis said.

“What it shows is that we’re going to need a different type of capability. It will improve your productivity or reduce your costs. But actually, you still need the human involved. And it is really that human-led, tech-powered transformation that’s required. It is around change adoption in organisations.”

However, the survey raised some significant questions about governance and oversight of AI. Just six per cent of those surveyed said that they had an AI governance structure in place, while 72 per cent revealed that they hadn’t even started to implement a governance plan. This, according to Curtis, was despite the fact that new EU regulations on governance were imminent.  

“Companies see the opportunity, so they see it’s broadly positive across the economy – and a very significant impact in terms of on their organisation. And yet they don’t have a plan in place if you look at the staff, or the governance, and yet the EU act is coming down to the level. So people really need to be paying attention,” she said. 

“The key thing is that people and companies adopt these technologies in a safe and secure way. That is critical.”

This was a point echoed by Duffy, who said that PwC had developed a responsible AI framework many years ago. 

“We have spent an awful lot of time looking at how organisations can use AI responsibly. But at the end of the day, it does come down to the individual. I can ask ChatGPT to build me a finance process. I’m not an accountant. I don’t know if it’s going to be correct. And so we have a ready reckoner, which we call the five Cs,” he said. 

“When you get the outputs from the system, it has to pass the five C’s test. Is it complete? Is it correct? Is it current? Is it based on clean data? And is it checkable? And if it can’t pass those five seats, you shouldn’t be using it.”

This article is partner content and has been produced in association with PwC.