Widthwise 2024
AI’m not magic
To harness the transformative power of the next technological revolution, print service providers need, Richard McCombe says, to be absolutely clear what AI is - and what it is not.
for the novel that inspired the eponymous movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’) noted in 1962. AI is merely the latest, and most em- phatic, proof of Clarke’s point. Tere is no doubt that AI can and will
A
transform the way companies do business but as Graphics Warehouse director Richard McCombe says, the boss of any wide-for- mat print service provider expecting to do a Harry Potter and wave this magic over their business is doomed to be disappointed. As he explains: “We are very close to using chatbots to create quotes for our customers
Algorithms
have been helping companies make decisions for decades, but this hasn’t stopped some tech companies masking them as AI
but that is only because the parameters are already in our systems.” In McCombe’s view, what distinguishes AI
from the many technologies so oſten associ- ated with it and which it will drive - such as robotics and automation - is that it can make its own decisions. Many of the things that people talk about as if they are AI are not new. Algorithms have been helping companies make decisions for decades, but this hasn’t stopped some tech companies masking them as AI. One expert sums up the difference: “An algorithm is a set of instructions - a preset, rigid, coded recipe that gets executed when it encounters a trigger. AI on the other hand
ny sufficiently ad- vanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” as Arthur C. Clarke, the great British science fiction writer (most famous
is a group of algorithms that can modify its algorithms and create new algorithms in re- sponse to learned inputs and data as opposed to relying solely on the inputs it was designed to recognise as triggers.” Te five areas where McCombe sees AI
making the crucial difference to his own wide-format business are: design (defining templates for customers and generating per- sonalised solutions); optimising production (by identifying in advance which machines will need maintenance and streamlining workflow, a perennial challenge for the industry); maximising quality (by detecting inconsistencies or flaws in prints); custom- er service (not just managing orders but predicting demand) and marketing (by targeting customers more effectively and granularly and creating content). Even more importantly, he says, AI can
cast an eye over the entire business, ana- lysing operational data to identify areas for improvement, optimise resource allocation, and drive strategic decision-making. “I was amazed by CHATGTP when I uploaded an Excel spreadsheet of customer buying habits - it summarised what would have taken me hours.” At this point, Graphic Warehouse’s key focus is on automated scheduling. Te difficulty this revolutionary technol-
ogy poses for print service providers, argues McCombe, is that “there is almost too much to do at once.” And, to his earlier point, he says managers need to think hard about
where AI adds the most value: “Te main barrier, particularly for SMEs, is whether they have sufficient expertise in-house to support this activity and implement off-the- shelf solutions.” Even Harry Potter wouldn’t win every
battle if he relied solely on his defensive charm Patronus. Similarly, every wide-for- mat print company needs to think hard about their business, strategy and customers as they consider their approach to AI. For some large, automated, integrated compa- nies serving a few customers or a narrowly defined market, the goal may be to minimise - even, in the long term, eliminate - direct contact with customers. For others, produc- ing a wide-range of products for a diverse client base, regular face-to-face interactions with clients will remain both inevitable and desirable - as it will with solutions that, al- though AI generated, are either inordinately complex or virtually bespoke. As the Widthwise article on technology
(see p20) makes clear, the future develop- ment of AI is a leap into the unknown. What we do - or so consultants tell us - is that it could ultimately transform company perfor- mance (indeed by 2035, Accenture predicts, it will increase productivity by 38%). And that is why, in McCombe’s view, the more print service providers get to know about AI - and the quicker they get to know it – the better. Tere’s really not that much riding on this - oh, except the future of your business.
www.imagereports.co.uk | Widthwise 2024 | 15
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