Hartford Business Journal

18 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | SEPTEMBER 18, 2023 IMAGE | PIXABAY/GERALT 'Changing Everything' AI could have transformative impact on CT, U.S. economies EDITOR'S NOTE This week, Hartford Business Journal is launching a series on artificial intelligence and its current and future impact on key sectors within Connecticut's economy. Read more about the series in Editor's Take on page 37. BRET GREENSTEIN Data and Analytics Partner PwC Education: Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering; master's in manufacturing systems engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute By Greg Bordonaro gbordonaro@hartfordbusiness.com W hen Bret Greenstein was in the sixth grade, his teacher demonstrated how a computer could learn and then recite someone's name. That's when Greenstein said he became intrigued by artificial intel- ligence. Since then, he's been on a more than 30-year career journey focused on IT and emerging tech- nologies, including stints at IBM and Cognizant. Today, Greenstein, a Danbury resi- dent, is part of the senior leadership team in charge of artificial intelli- gence at one of the world's largest professional services and consulting firms, PwC. The company, which has several Connecticut offices, is bullish on AI, and has made a big bet on the technology. In April, PwC announced it will invest $1 billion in generative AI over the next three years to automate parts of its tax, audit and consulting services. It will also use its learnings to help clients with their AI adoption. PwC is working with Microsoft Corp. and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI on its AI transformation, said Green- stein, a data and analytics partner. "We're changing everything, finance, HR, how we do delivery, how we do M&A, using generative AI to handle all of our confidential data, and to do it in a way that drives productivity and scale," Greenstein said in a recent interview. Greenstein said companies of any size can begin to experiment with generative AI, a type of artificial intelli- gence that uses algorithms to create new content like text, images, sound and other media. The tech phrase became part of the American lexicon nearly a year ago with OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence text chatbot. Most companies will use the tech- nology to automate various business processes, such as customer service and data analysis, with the goal of scaling their workforce, saving money and quickening the pace of certain tasks, Greenstein said. For example, PwC recently launched an internal generative-AI tool — called ChatPwC — that provides employees feedback on common questions related to taxes and regulations. In another example of AI's potential use, Greenstein said he was recently consulting for a client that makes home-improvement products and gets constant calls from customers and contractors asking for help on product assembly and installation. The company wants to create a generative AI-backed self-service program that incorporates its product instructions and other how-to docu- ments to speed up the time it takes to answer consumer questions. "That's a very cool use case and very doable with today's technology," Greenstein said. AI will have key uses in major industries in Connecticut, he added, including health care, banking, utilities and insurance. It can, for example, be used to transform insurance call centers by extracting and then using customer information to create a claim. And AI isn't reserved just for large, deep-pocketed corporations, Greenstein said. Smaller companies can and should consider experimenting with the technology, possibly using off-the-shelf generative AI models, like ChatGPT, to improve processes.

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