Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | SEPTEMBER 18, 2023 19 AI IN CT For example, Greenstein said he knows a company with 100 electricians using generative AI to help manage service requests and records. A small public relations firm could use the technology to write client press releases. "I think what AI will do is allow small companies to act like larger companies because it will allow them to scale their workforce," he said. "And I think large companies are trying to figure out how they can take out a lot of costs and act with greater speed, so they can act like a nimbler, smaller company." Economic impact According to a recent PwC study, AI will have a transformative economic impact, contributing up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. That's more than the current output of China and India combined. Of that amount, $6.6 trillion is likely to come from increased productivity, and $9.1 trillion from consumption-side effects, according to the study. AI's economic impact will be driven by productivity gains from businesses automating processes and augmenting their existing labor force. It will also create increased consumer demand from the availability of personalized and/or higher-quality products and services, according to PwC. Greenstein recently chatted with HBJ about AI's current and future impact on businesses. Here's what else he had to say. The Q&A was edited for length and clarity. Q. What stage of AI development are we in right now? A. So, in AI broadly, it's like springtime. Flowers are blooming. But in genera- tive AI, it's still very early. Maybe it's the first week of spring. The point is, each of the models and capabilities continue to leapfrog each other. You're going to see this massive amount of innovation in the next two years, where the models themselves become more capable at a wider set of things. That means performance will improve, the number of things that it can do will grow, and the cost of using it will go down. Q. How widespread is AI adoption among businesses? A. For the enterprise or corporate market that we serve, you've got the bulk of businesses that are in early stage exploration. Companies are making what I call safe bets at the moment, doing things where they can drive real outcomes and gain incremental business value. In the future, I think you're going to see business models built around AI more. Right now, a company may be experimenting with AI on how they handle invoices, but wouldn't it be more interesting to change your entire supply chain? However, it would be very risky at this point to make those types of drastic changes, until the underlying technologies are really maturing and not evolving so rapidly. There are a few real leaders today who are doing what I'll call disruption. In almost every sector, they're trying to find the disruptive business model where AI makes something happen that is simply impossible today. I see it in payroll and mortgage processing, insurance, health care — they're all trying to find this new way, where you could ten X the work productivity with AI and drive something different. All companies have access to AI technologies, but the companies that invest in it to drive differentiation are the ones that are going to have an advantage. Q. Which industries do you think AI will impact the most? A. It's clearly applying to places where you're seeing pools of labor doing lots of things. So, in industries where you have customer service, where you have huge volumes of inbound communication, like tons of customer requests, invoices, contracts, things like that, that's where AI is ripe for implementation. The use of AI doesn't really apply to a single industry, it's more about the pattern of work. You're going to see more likely adoption with orga- nizations that have high volumes of document-based work. You see that in the legal and educa- tion industries as well as banking, insurance and health care — they have got paper flowing everywhere. Companies are using generative AI to answer customer purchase emails, for lease abstraction (or extracting, processing, and organizing critical lease data) and also to help handle mortgage applications. I think if you look at everything from utilities, to insurance companies, to banking, it's going to certainly drive improvements, especially in customer service. I think it's also going to help with the ability to understand what customers feel and want. One of the examples that came up recently was in customer service. When you do an interaction with customer service, at the end of a call, they always ask if you'd be willing to stay on for five extra minutes to do a survey. Well, if you're unhappy, the answer is always no. And even if you're happy, the answer is no because we're busy. Instead, what if you use generative AI to listen to the entire dialogue to develop an assumption of how a customer felt based on the tone and intensity of the discussion. I think AI is going to allow us to better adapt to customer input. Q. What impact will AI have on the labor force? A. What most people are saying is it's going to drive a whole new class of jobs. The jobs that people have are going to focus more on critical thinking, judgment and higher levels of work because a lot of easier knowledge work will get done using AI. But it also creates all kinds of new opportunities and roles, whether it's managing the data, or making AI systems work well, or integrating AI into business or new business models. If the marginal costs of certain types of labor go down a lot, entirely new businesses that were cost-ineffective before will emerge. That will create new jobs as well. Q. What types of skill sets are needed by workers who want to get into AI? A. While traditional AI requires data scientists with Ph.D.s, generative AI requires a skill set that's a little more adjacent to the data analytics skills that already exist in the market. Data analytics relies heavily on certain techniques — data science, data engineering — and almost all AI work, especially generative AI, has a heavy dependence on data. These are incredibly valuable skills for a world where AI is going to play such a big role. And I think the world needs a lot more people who have them. AI in Healthcare From evaluating strokes to predicting patient downturns, artificial intelligence is transforming health care By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo msullo@hartfordbusiness.com A t the Yale New Haven Comprehensive Stroke Center, physicians like Dr. Joseph Schindler can use artificial intelligence-enhanced technology to evaluate patients who are suffering from strokes. In real-time, the technology helps physicians see what's happening inside a patient's brain, locate block- ages, evaluate damage and deter- mine if more brain tissue is at risk. It's all key information for deciding on a treatment plan, according to Schindler. Artificial intelligence is being used throughout Connecticut's healthcare industry — to evaluate strokes, detect tumors, develop drugs, and help medical providers with mundane tasks so they can focus on critical patient care. And that's just a fraction of how the healthcare industry is using AI now — the potential is growing. Industry leaders statewide are investigating new ways to leverage the technology, such as using gener- ative AI to draft initial responses to patient medical queries. AI is expected to help physicians predict patients' future health problems, so they can recommend preventive measures. Dr. Lee Schwamm, senior vice president and chief digital health officer for the Yale New Haven Health system, said AI is frequently used at Yale for imaging and diagnostics, helping doctors evaluate images and identify and quantify abnormalities on tests, ranging from mammograms and colonoscopies to electrocardiograms. Global medical technology AMERICANS HAVE MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS' USE OF AI A recent Pew Research Center survey showed about 60% of U.S. adults reported they would feel uncomfortable if their health provider relied on AI for diagnosing diseases and recommending treatments. However, according to the same survey, more Americans (40%) think using AI in health and medicine would reduce health provider mistakes, while 27% believe it would increase mistakes. Lee Schwamm

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