Ubiquitous AI lands firmly in Australia - 2023 Australian Advanced-analytics and AI review
Photo credit: Intel Corporation, AI Everywhere

Ubiquitous AI lands firmly in Australia - 2023 Australian Advanced-analytics and AI review


DISCLAIMER:

?Swamy and Associates has done business with or currently does business with or aims to do business with any and all individuals and entities named in this and all previously published editions of the 19-yr-old-Swamys Perspectives

?VERY Important note:?Swamy’s Perspectives’ definition of “Australian stalwarts” includes "Australian analytics Orphans", those stalwart individuals and/or entities geographically based offshore but lead advanced-analytics and AI engagements for Australia head-quartered organizations, directly or indirectly via service providers and consulting firms

?Dear all

Welcome back to our annual edition of our 19 year-old Swamys Perspectives, the Wisden of the Australian Advanced-analytics and AI sector (Wisden as in John Wisden’s path-breaking cricketing almanack)

?From the ancient ChatGPT that enthralled all of us around last Christmas / New Year’s time with its ability to summarize and generate all sorts of documents through? Humane’s ?“AI Pin” which threatens to keep us connected to AI models (incl ChatGPT) 24/7, 365 days a year to Google’s Gemini which can create experiences from your 10-year old photos,? this year saw “AI Mania” morph and firmly establish itself as “Ubiquitous AI” in a manner that now is turning our lives, inside out

?Even more interestingly but predictably for many of us old owls, all of this occurred just when both social media and mainstream media were deluged with clickbait articles bewailing the Tech Wreck and the consequent layoffs ??

?Yup, that old Bay Area adage for those who give up on innovation and retreated, “only the tourists go home” rang true, yet again, perhaps truer than it ever did in the last 2 decades!

?Eventually when they pivoted, most Australian mainstream media journalists published hastily scribbled articles which didn’t even attempt to make the basic distinction between Generative AI and traditional Classificatory AI

They ended up lumping it all together as “AI” and liberally adding full table-spoons of the R word “Responsible” to anything and everything they could. Hence, we got "Responsible AI frameworks”, “Responsible AI regulations”,? “Responsible AI white paper” all quoting newly minted “Responsible AI” experts who apparently were responsible for ensuring that “Responsible AI”? was responsibly implemented, did you get that? ?? (there were a handful of non-mainstream exceptions but more about it later)

?All of this even before we were deluged by delightful events entitled “AI Day”, “AI Week”, “AI Month” and very soon, “AI Millennium” too ??

?But the biggest upshot of all of this AI Cacophony caused by Generative AI (some of it still continuing esp here in Australia) was that it put ALL types of AI incl good old traditional classificatory AI firmly on the agenda of Australian Corporate Boards and Governments (state and Federal)

?Indeed, that remains the biggest news of this year, the exponentially raised interest in all things AI from private sector boards and exec leadership through government departments and agencies (state and federal) to non-profits and charities

?Rightho then, what were the major Advanced-analytics and AI themes that dominated this year?

?Six Advanced-analytics and AI themes that are now here to stay at Australian organizations

?

  1. Digital Global Capability Centres (Digital GCCs) Almost every respectable Australian organization (and several not particularly respectable ones) figured out a few years ago that Australia lacked the depth of engineering and computer science skill-sets to SCALE Advanced-analytics and AI in any significant and impactful mannerBut most of them took the tried and tested 19th and? 20th century route of lobbying the Federal and State governments for more skilled migration which resulted in Big Four consulting firms, global tech companies (esp India-based ones) and even niche analytics firms dumping every data science and data engineering resource they could at premium rates onshore on to Australia (almost entirely from their Indian factories) The smarter organizations in our review did something significantly different, they resisted jumping on to the 19th and 20th century bandwagon of “skilled migration” and also attempted to cut out the middle-men (the motley crew of Big Four, global tech and niche firms) by developing and scaling their own Digital Global Capability Centres (Digital GCCs) focused primarily on data engineers, data scientists, automation engineers and project leaders to accelerate their Advanced-analytics and AI deployment The stand outs were the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Telstra which scaled their Digital GCCs aggressively this year whilst several others such as NAB and Link Group publicly announced plans to accelerate their GCCs in 2024! At least half a dozen other ASX Top 20 firms are now in a “wait and watch” mode and many would be candidates for a Digital GCC in 2024

2. MLOps platforms, the lynchpin of scaling Advanced-analytics and AI

If replacing legacy data platforms with an Azure / AWS supported cloud data warehouse or a lakehouse (eg Snowflake / Databricks) was the data engineering story of the last few years, the acceleration this year shifted to the adoption of ?MLOps platforms to scale machine learning applications, accelerate their deployment and manage their maintenance Three stand outs here were ?three prominent MLOps platforms here in Australia – H20.ai ’s Driverless AI ?(part-owned by Commonwealth Bank of Australia), Dataiku’s DSS Platform and AWS’s Sagemaker MLOps platform As Australian companies focus on their CI / CD pipelines towards automating machine learning deployment in 2024, expect these MLOps platforms (and potentially, others without much presence here in Australia) to start becoming prominent both in intent and speed of execution

3. Rise of Synthetic Data in training ML models esp in data privacy heavy areas such as healthcare and health insurance?

As we stated in our 31 March 2023 edition of Swamys Perspectives entitled “Synthetic Data – Generative AI’s killer application”, the biggest potential for Gen AI impact lies in the utilisation of Synthetic Data to accelerate the training of ML models particularly in areas where access to data is highly restricted such as healthcare and health insurance

Synthetic Data is neither real nor fake data, it pertains to data sets generated by Gen AI engines but which share most of the properties of real life data sets and hence can be used to train ML models in the same way as real data For a more elaborate understanding, do click on the link below to our 31st March 2023 article https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7047212033162805249/

Why is usage of Synthetic Data critical? The most time-consuming part of any major ML project, even a simple POV, is the data governance approval for the data-sets (even PCI sanitized and tokenized data sets) to be released for the actual training of the models For a typical ASX 20 organization, that’s between 2 to 3 months (add another month, if it involves access by offshore data scientists) and for a healthcare / health insurance organization, it is even more of a struggle!

Synthetic Data provided by Generative AI, as long as it is correctly prompt engineered and curated, can fill that void and help accelerate the training of ML models esp at the POV stage Two interesting examples of Synthetic Data this year were:

  • CBA’s trial of using Synthetic Data to simulate the behaviour of customers whose profiles were synthetic personas created by Gen AI
  • LendLease Podium for Developer’s usage of Digital Twins to enable simulation of real world building utilities data Expect several Australian organizations esp healthcare and health insurers to experiment with Synthetic Data usage in 2024

?4. Contact centre automation and customer digital journey

One of the two areas where AI (traditional classificatory AI, not Generative AI) has been the most effective this year (as has been over at least the last 3 years) has been in driving the automation of customer contact centres and the consequent increased productivity levels

From the commonplace chatbots to the more sophisticated use of intent mapping NLP algorithms for triaging customer chats and calls, this year saw a sustained high level of activity in this area

As mentioned in the previous section, we expect the acceleration in the usage of Synthetic Data in 2024 especially customer personas to extend to contact centres as well and make a significant impact on the customer journey

5. Risk and compliance analytics esp scam and fraud analytics

The second area where AI has made a strong impact has seen everything this year, from simple NLP to assist and automate document creation for legal teams all the way to scam warnings and fraud analytics

The stand out this year was Insurance Australia Group’s ?(IAG) Fraud analytics team that developed and implemented a fraudulent claims detection and prioritization ML model including estimating fraud investigation cost modelling across its entire motor claims portfolio

Other organizations focused on deploying ML to alert customers of potential scam calls and messages as well as identify and deal with fraud rings and participants within fraud rings Again similar to 4 above, we expect a lot of interest to be focused in this area in 2024, particularly around applications of fraud ring algorithms within healthcare, health insurers and workers compensation and disability insurers

6. Smart Reporting with embedded anomaly detection especially at state and federal government enterprises

The last area where we saw a large number of POVs and a couple of significant examples esp within government enterprises was in the area of smart reporting particularly the use of anomaly detection ML algorithms

This was consistent with the trend that we’ve been witnessing in this market-place over the last 5 years at least where traditional BI and Reporting functions are rapidly getting transformed using ML algorithms to focus on detecting unusual patterns as early as possible and then drilling down to the Root Cause and relevant fixes

?Rightho then, what were the organizations that stood out this year and the Australian Advanced-analytics and AI stalwarts that made it all happen this year?????????????????????

Advanced-analytics and AI?Stalwarts Hall of Fame

But before we jump into this year’s organizations and stalwarts list, first things first

Over the last 19 years that we’ve been publishing this annual edition of Swamys Perspectives, there have been ONLY EIGHT stalwarts who were commended at least THREE times or more:

Australian Organizations that stood out for Advanced-analytics and AI driven digital transformation this year

  • Australian Taxation Office (ATO) – this is the first time EVER that a government agency or department has been at the top of our annual list (and only the second time ever that one has featured in our list over the last 19 years!) Across every aspect of the advanced-analytics value chain from data engineering through data sciences to hands on and effective deployment of ML algorithms for fraud propensity to strong data and analytics advocacy (internal and external), the ATO team excelled this year The only practical constraint has been its inability to leverage global ?capabilities via GCCs and hence, its extensive dependence on external consulting firms (for example EY ) for its advanced-analytics needs It’s a matter of obvious commercial logic that developing a GCC and weaning off the dependence on consulting firms esp the Big Four body-shops would not just cut its overall cost of operations materially but also permit it to accelerate more rapid scaling
  • Commonwealth Bank (CBA) – the most consistent performer in our list (11th time in 19 years)
  • Insurance Australia Group IAG – another reliable and dependable performer over the years
  • Lendlease – successful launch of two major Advanced-analytics and AI products – Podium Property Insights and Podium for (property) Development
  • Telstra much awaited consolidation of all aspects of data, analytics and AI under a single Group Executive as well as launch of the Telstra-Quantium joint venture. 2024 should be a major year of execution for Telstra
  • 麦格理集团 – new Google cloud data and analytics platform, delivery partnership with Fractal Analytics and acceleration of the GCC
  • Woolworths Group – another reliable and dependable performer over the years
  • MUFG Pension & Market Services – the most under-rated and un-appreciated company in our list! Despite the well known constraints in investment ability and the ongoing distraction of corporate M&A activity, the company excelled at scaling its GCC and accelerating its intelligent automation program esp across its corporate markets businessExpect even stronger performance next year, now that the company has found stability and investment from a long-term strategic investor in the form of MUFG
  • Ramsay Health Care – this is only the second time in 19 years that a healthcare / health insurance organization has been featured in our annual list (the first was Australian Unity about half a dozen years ago at a time of rapid digital transformation)Ramsay has undergone about 3 years of data-driven digital transformation over the last 12 mths, expect more from this strong and credible team
  • National Australia Bank 澳洲国民银行 – commenced its GCC operations and is also in the second year of its new ?Azure and AWS data and analytics platform based on the Databricks lakehouse Should see some strong use cases come through soon

?

Australian Organizations to look out for acceleration ?in 2024@– expect new Transformation Director, Danielle Handley (ex IAG), to accelerate AA and AI in 2024

  • Bupa Asia Pacific – expect new Transformation Director, Danielle Handley (ex IAG), to accelerate AA and AI in 2024
  • Judo Bank – expect the AA and AI team lead by COO, Liza Frazier, to start delivering on use cases
  • AIA Australia – expect the local AIA operation to start feeding off the AIA Group digital success story led by Sue Coulter
  • HBF Health – expect new CDAO, Kathryn Gulifa, to drive acceleration next year

?

Advanced-Analytics and AI stalwarts that stood out in driving digital transformation (private and public sector) this year

?

Advanced-analytics and AI advisors and consultants that stood out this year

Advanced-analytics and AI advocates and commentators that stood out

?

Australian AA and AI start ups that made the most impact (preferably with as little noise as possible??)

?

?

What will 2024 bring here for the Advanced-analytics and AI industry here in Australia?

Notwithstanding the much touted Fed rate cuts (finally taking shape) and the long rumoured Chinese govt mega-stimulus (just started in dribs and drabs), I expect disinflationary (and if I can be brave enough, DEFLATIONARY) pressures to start taking hold and apply the brakes even harder to the already slowing economic momentum

In this scenario, I would expect every aspect of operation of any significant organization, Australian and global, to be under huge pressure to drive serious value from the major investments made all across the Advanced-analytics and AI value chain be they technology and infrastructure (eg Snowflake and Databricks cloud data warehouses / data lakes) or expensive data engineering, data science and machine learning staff resources

The winners would be those that can use their Digital global capability centres (GCCs) to scale and deliver operational transformation and cut costs faster and cheaper?

Rest assured, our 19-year-old Swamys Perspectives will certainly be there to let you all know exactly who they are!!

?Have a peaceful and relaxing Christmas and New Year break and see you all back on deck in 2024

?

Thanks and kind regards

Sri

?

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Sriraman ("Sri") Annaswamy GAICD IIT IIM

Founder and Director

Swamy and Associates

Advanced-Analytics, AI and BPM Advisors and Managers

Level 8, 65 York Street

Sydney - 2000

Ph(mobile): 61 414 629 981

Ph (landline): 61 2 8215 1504

Fax: 61 2 8215 1600

email:? [email protected]

email: [email protected]

Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/sriannaswamy1

www.swamyandassociates.com.au





Very Valuable insights.

Harpreet Khalsa

Chief Data Officer at Edith Cowan University

11 个月

Sriraman ("Sri") Annaswamy GAICD IIT IIM - Really enjoyed reading your insights on AI and big thanks for having me in the list. Please keep sharing your insights - they are really valuable.

Dr Rachna Gandhi (PhD)

Global Group Executive - Transformation and Digital Enablement

11 个月

Thank you Sriraman ("Sri") Annaswamy GAICD IIT IIM. So humbled to be on the list and honoured to have Ramsay Health Care recognised for the important journey we are on. Credit to the incredible team I have and the momentum we have built in a short period. Hope you are well. Have a fabulous Christmas and New Year!

Julie Batch

Chief Executive Officer, NRMA Insurance

11 个月

Thank you Sriraman ("Sri") Annaswamy GAICD IIT IIM. What an honour to be a stalwart but more so to see so many past and present IAG pioneers in your list Danielle Handley Willem Paling Tiberio Caetano Reza Mohajerpoor Chris Dolman

Amitabh Mall

[Strategy | Leadership | Transformation | Innovation | Artificial Intelligence] in Retail

11 个月

Thanks for the shout out Sriraman ("Sri") Annaswamy GAICD IIT IIM. It has indeed been a year of change in this space. A lot of exciting new stuff but also a lot of hype. Hopefully the hype cools down and we get on with it in 2024. Happy holidays!

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