Online Group as speaker at the AI panel and first-hand insights from Microsoft
This year, we were once again able to take part in the Microsoft partner event “Data & AI Summer Day 2024”. We are particularly proud to be a selected partner speaker on the AI panel. In this panel, we were able to share our experience and best practices in the field of AI solutions with Microsoft and the Microsoft partner landscape. Here is an insight into the event and our key findings.
Great response and exchange at a high level
The “Data & AI Summer Day” once again attracted a huge amount of interest this year. Both online and onsite attendance was high (fully booked), which shows that the topic of AI plays a central role. The event provided an ideal platform for interacting directly with Microsoft AI specialists, gaining valuable insights and closely aligning our solutions with the latest developments and strategies from Microsoft.
For us, the event was a valuable opportunity to learn first-hand about news and innovations that will give us a competitive advantage. In particular, Microsoft’s focus on Copilot, Azure AI, Security, M365 and the migrations to Azure are directly reflected in our strategic goals – our direction is perfectly aligned with Microsoft’s priorities for 2024/2025.
An event that combines business and technology
The event offered both a business track and a tech track, allowing participants to continue their education at various levels. From business priorities and practical technical implementations to forward-looking developments such as Generative AI and Microsoft Fabric – the range of topics was broad.
The exchange between partners is particularly noteworthy: we had the opportunity to analyze best practices implemented directly by Microsoft for major customers and were able to take away many lessons learned from specific projects. One example of this is our success with Azure AI, such as the project with Bernina, which uses a scalable AI solution based on Microsoft Azure.
AI as a driving force for the future
The motto of the event was clear: AI will transform every industry. More than 60,000 companies worldwide are already using Azure AI, including many of our customers. We see first-hand how AI drastically reduces the cost of creating and transforming information. Our focus is on Microsoft’s leading and scalable cloud platform. With Azure as our foundation, we are developing AI solutions that not only meet today’s requirements, but also those of the future. Particularly exciting is the integration of Generative AI with Big Data, for example through Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft OpenAI, which together open up new possibilities for data utilization.
Expertise from Online Group at the AI panel: “A successful AI project knows no limits – it scales with time and demands.”
One of the highlights of the “Data & AI Summer Day 2024” for us was our participation in the AI panel, in which our Ralf Angermann answered three key questions about AI projects and their implementation.
- What are best practices to ensure data quality and integrity in AI projects?
The quality and integrity of the data is crucial to the success of any AI project. As a foundation, we always recommend starting with a clear business case. This helps to define the objectives of the project and ensure that the AI principles of fairness, transparency and accountability are considered from the outset.
Another important aspect is the adaptation of data processing to the specific requirements of the project. This includes targeted chunking, filtering and pre-processing of metadata to ensure that the data meets the respective requirements. A “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work here; instead, data ingestion and retrieval must be tailored to the specific area of application.
- How do we ensure that our AI solutions are scalable and adaptable for future requirements?
Scalability and adaptability are key to future-proofing AI solutions. Our answer to this lies in a modular architecture that allows us to scale individual components independently of each other. With our scaling engine, we rely on cloud-native technologies that enable us to automatically adapt resources to demand. This ensures that our solutions always work efficiently, regardless of the size of the project. In addition, we implement CI/CD pipelines (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment), which enable us to carry out fast and secure updates. This allows us to continuously develop our solutions with new data and changing business requirements.
- If you could have one superpower related to AI, what would it be and why?
Ralf Angermann responded to this somewhat unusual question with an inspiring comparison: the ideal superpower would be to be like Marvel’s Iron Man’s “Jarvis”. Jarvis has access to all the world’s knowledge at all times and always knows exactly the right AI trends and technologies to focus on. With such a capability, there would be no more guesswork – you would always have the right tools and insights at your fingertips to tackle any challenge immediately. This would be an immense help in making the best decisions and implementing AI projects even more efficiently.
Ideal legal framework for AI in Switzerland
For us as a Swiss company, the Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI infrastructure in the Swiss data centers provides the ideal framework for meeting local requirements. Particularly in highly regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, banking and the public sector, this infrastructure puts us in an ideal position to meet data protection guidelines and legal requirements.
Outlook into the future of AI
With the upcoming introduction of GPT-4 in Copilot, which is already showing significant performance improvements in the preview phase, and the imminent support of Swiss German in Microsoft Teams, we are looking forward to an exciting year. This will further accelerate the introduction of AI in Switzerland and help us to make AI-based solutions even more effective for our customers. We are excited about the upcoming developments and look forward to further expanding our strategic partnership with Microsoft. Together with Microsoft, we are focusing on technologies that really make a difference and help our customers to successfully master the challenges of tomorrow.
