Stockholm’s Future Talent Summit — the most significant AI conference of 2024 — was recently held at the Waterfront Congress Centre on June 18th-19th. The annual event is a unique opportunity for leaders in business, government, and education to come together, participate in interactive sessions, and attend talks on the latest ways AI is disrupting society, now and into the future. At this year’s event, AI in healthcare and marketing were big topics, while telecom company Verizon also revealed the positive results they’ve gotten from implementing generative AI this year.
AI is disrupting most industries
The Future Talent Summit gave attendees the chance to hear real-world examples of how AI is transforming industries. For example, in healthcare, a new AI tool has been developed by Kheiron Medical Technologies and Imperial College London, which can detect up to 13% more breast cancers than humans can. The AI tool, called Mia, can identify potentially cancerous tissue in mammograms previously considered healthy humans. In this instance, AI functions as a safety net that stops cancer symptoms that aren’t so obvious from being overlooked.
Moreover, conference attendees also discovered how AI is being used across industries to improve outbound marketing strategies, and specifically, to personalise cold emails. The average cold email open rate stands at around 20%. Personalised emails, on the other hand, can increase open rates by 26%, which highlights just how important tailored messages are to catch readers’ attention. Yet, personalisation is a tricky and time-consuming job to get right. That’s where AI tools like ChatGPT come in. After being fed detailed prompts, ChatGPT can generate clear and engaging personalised emails that resonate with the intended recipient. Not only that, but these emails also inspire the reader to take the action desired, which ultimately improves the success rates of cold email campaigns.
Verizon uses GenAI to retain customers
Hans Vestberg, CEO of U.S. Verizon, also announced that his telecom company now uses generative AI in the customer service process. Verizon has consequently prevented 100,000 customers from switching service providers so far in 2024 alone — directly as a result of genAI. “We already have four generative AI products in commercial use,” said Vestberg. “The company receives around 170 million calls every year and with GenAI it can now determine 80% of the time why a customer is calling”, said Vestberg. After accurately guessing the reason for a customer call, GenAI can put them through to the right agent. “I have 60,000 call agents and I know what they are really good at so I can match your call with the right agent,” he said.
Verizon also uses GenAI to personalise customer offers during store visits, which therefore decreases individual store visit times by seven minutes on average. In 2023, Verizon’s churn rate — the rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions — was about 1%. “We believe this year we can have less churn … it’s an experience for you, for my employee, and ultimately I’ll make some more money,” Vestberg said.
No more weekends for the financial sector?
Although AI is streamlining and improving work processes across all industries, Yuval Noah Harari (best-selling philosopher and historian) also warned caution is needed, particularly in the financial industry. AI has already been used in the financial sector for decades, but this may eventually risk the very existence of weekends, according to Harari. Stock markets like the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street currently keep to traditional business hours and close on Saturdays and Sundays. Yet, the rise of AI could encourage a 24/7 working week with no rest. “Information is the food of the mind. We need it to survive, grow, and thrive”, said Harai. “But it can also be very dangerous. Too much information, or the wrong kind, isn’t good for you. So the same way people go on diets, they should be mindful of what kind of food they are giving their minds”.
This year’s Future Talent Summit in Stockholm was a fascinating weekend packed with informative talks and sessions led by industry experts. By harnessing the power of AI, leaders across all industries can use it to gain a competitive edge, while also making it a net benefit overall for society.
