AI On Board

"Abu Dhabi's $238 billion International Holding made headlines last month by adding an AI-powered observer to its board." Many picture an artificial being sitting in on board meetings and participating in the working by simply answering the questions raised by the board members, but the reality is a bit different & Less Glamorous. It is just a tool to convert a large data into meaningful information, something that our MIS team does day in an out. :)

Using AI to assist in high-level decision-making isn't new. Blackrock, for example, has been using its Aladdin system for a while. If you've heard of Aladdin and under the influence of few youtubers think it can do things like read a CEO's face during AGM to predict stock prices, you're mistaken. Aladdin stands for Asset, Liability, and Debt and Derivative Investment Network, and it's mainly used for assessing risk.

I remember working with AI software back in 2005. It was lent by a friend's father due to my interest in financial markets and programming skills. It was developed by a Russian company and while it was expensive, it didn't produce extraordinary results. It did help reduce risk, though, but that could have been achieved by mixing uncorrelated investments or ten other ways. The way it worked back then is quite similar to today's AI, but it could only handle numbers and you had to use its own programming language to talk to it. It was promised as holy grail at even at that time and same is true today.

In short, AI isn't new, but we might be making it seem more glamorous than it really is.