AI in Enterprise IT: Living Up to the Hype
govciooutlookeurope

AI in Enterprise IT: Living Up to the Hype

Kent E, Director of Communication & Information Systems, Doña Ana County

Kent E, Director of Communication & Information Systems, Doña Ana County

Kent E. is the Director of Communication & Information Systems for Doña Ana County, based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He serves as a member of the county’s executive management team, overseeing the operation, support, and security of all computing and telecommunication systems. Kent leads the IT department in providing technology services to county offices, develops IT policies and strategy, and provides expert assistance in systems analysis and data security.

In an exclusive interview with Govt CIO Outlook, Kent E. shared his invaluable insights about the developments in AI in enterprise, the prevailing challenges and the possible future of AI in enterprise IT.

No pain, no gain

There has been a lot of hype about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and everything that it can do. But there is still a large gap between current expectations and its actual capabilities. While there have been some significant achievements, AI systems still have a long way to go to live up to the current hype. Generative AI has made the biggest impact by increasing productivity through task automation and content creation. It has been used to compose stories or music, generate images from keywords or descriptions, and produce program code. AI systems can also process a lot of information quickly which makes them an excellent search engine that can understand natural language commands. Used as a reference tool, AI systems can enhance decision making and aid problem solving. Best of all, they don’t require much technical knowledge to use them. But the hype is not always positive, as there have been claims that automating tasks will eliminate jobs. Also, the same benefits described above can be used by bad actors to create misinformation, steal data, and compromise systems.

The Benefits

AI systems are great tools that can be used by Enterprise IT to automate tasks and workflows, resolve or route helpdesk tickets, and provide virtual assistants that are available 7x24. You have probably seen or used one of the AI plugins that take meeting notes and provide summaries. AI can help write memos, draft policies and procedures, create presentations, analyze customer data, maintain compliance, and enforce company standards. It can also change the voice or tone of emails and other communications to improve professionalism. By increasing productivity and the efficiency of staff, less resources are needed resulting in reduced costs. Because it can analyze massive amounts of data in seconds, AI is able to predict device failures, recommend maintenance, and optimize code or system performance. Cyber systems using AI can detect attacks by monitoring network activity and scanning for strange patterns or anomalies. If an attack is predicted or observed, they can react quickly to prevent an intrusion or eradicate a malicious program. Beyond preventing external intrusions, AI systems will flag and prevent the transmission of sensitive information like PII, HIPAA, and financial data.

“AI technology still needs to measure up to the current hype and expectations or it could risk losing the interest of the public and investors”

The Drawbacks

AI systems are only as good as the data they are built on. They can be subject to inherent bias, discrimination, and false information if the data in their Large Language Model (LLM) has not been validated and weighted. Consider the source and quality of the LLM when purchasing AI tools especially when used with technical and financial systems. Although they augment staff, it is possible that AI systems could replace employees providing customer service, performing basic coding, and working entry-level jobs. They are also affecting career growth for some positions and changing the skill requirements to include AI expertise. With the increasing dependency on AI, employees may lose critical thinking skills. There is also the impact to the environment by large AI datacenters. They have huge requirements for computing power, data, and energy that can affect the surrounding areas. The biggest concern of AI is the power of its benefits being used by criminals and bad actors. They are using them to infect information systems with misinformation and false facts. AI systems enable them to create “Deepfakes” of people using almost indistinguishable voices, images, and video to support their agenda or discredit their target. Bad actors can more easily impersonate employees or company leaders to gain access to sensitive information or commit fraud. They can also use the information to manipulate employees or extort money.

The Limitations

AI systems are great at organizing information and recognizing patterns but they cannot really “understand” the data. They don’t possess “common sense” and although they can mimic human emotions, they are inherently emotionless. This can cause AIs to generate invalid or conflicting responses, which is a real concern for results produced in medical, legal, and criminal systems. Although AIs can produce new images and text, they are not very creative since anything generated is based on new patterns of the data it has been trained on. There is no real sense of a genuine idea or new concept.

What Does the Future Hold?

The success of AI will require clean, organized, and reliable data. New AI systems are being created using a Small Language Model (SLM) which is more specialized, efficient, and requires less resources. These systems will be smaller, faster, more accurate, and will provide better support for real-time systems and on-device applications. The availability of open-source models will enable organizations to build their own specialized AI solutions. But Artificial Intelligence will still have to address and overcome the challenges of bias, data privacy, copyrighted data, and intellectual property. AI technology still needs to measure up to the current hype and expectations, or it could risk losing the interest of the public and investors. Current systems are expensive to build and maintain and there is concern that they will not deliver a return on their investment (ROI). AI systems may be able to portray human intelligence, but they still haven’t achieved consciousness. That’s probably a good thing, as I have seen the movies when that happens.

Weekly Brief

Read Also

AI in Enterprise IT: Living Up to the Hype

Kent E, Director of Communication & Information Systems, Doña Ana County

Voices of Resilience

Amy Maxwell, Public Relations Manager for the Office of Emergency Management, Hamilton County Government

Business Analysis: The Discipline that Saves Projects before They Begin

Chuck Henderson, Chief Information Officer, Franklin County Missouri Government

Cloud, AI, and a Culture of Innovation

James F. Twigger, Chief Information Officer, City of Tamarac

Creating a Culture of Accountability in IT

Ted Ross, Chief Information Officer, City of Los Angeles

Modernizing City IT with purpose

Craig Poley, Chief Information Officer, the City of Arvada