{"id":295277,"date":"2020-03-02T12:22:14","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T11:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/?p=295277"},"modified":"2021-01-25T15:15:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T14:15:16","slug":"fa3-ireland-has-a-bright-ai-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/transform-en-ie\/na\/fa3-ireland-has-a-bright-ai-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland Has a Bright AI Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m looking forward to participating on a panel discussion at this year\u2019s AI Summit to discuss how Ireland can be more successful with AI. The first thing to note here is that <\/span>industry\u00a0research\u00a0<\/a>places Ireland\u2019s <\/span>pace at adopting AI as a little slower than other Europe regions. This is based on\u00a0a number of\u00a0factors from regulatory issues and tight budgets to a limited pool of AI-skilled professionals. For some organisations, there has been a\u00a0<\/span>little<\/span>\u00a0reluctance to invest in this technology before fully understanding how it will impact their business. So, companies have\u00a0<\/span>taken\u00a0<\/span>a\u00a0<\/span>\u2018<\/span>wait and see<\/span>\u2019<\/span>\u00a0approach while they focus on their overall digital transformation strategy. However, most Irish companies have<\/span>, at least,<\/span>\u00a0started\u00a0<\/span>to\u00a0<\/span>plan their AI journey and, with over $39 million invested in AI start-ups in Ireland in the last deca<\/span>de*<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>it certainly hasn\u2019t stopped Ireland bringing to market some really exciting innovations in this space.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With AI, there can often be a focus on the negatives including the loss of jobs for humans as roles become more automated.\u00a0<\/span>According to PwC, over 7 million jobs will be displaced by AI between 2017 and 2037. However, it will also lead to the generation of 7.2 million jobs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>AI<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>technology has already delivered\u00a0<\/span>great things\u00a0<\/span>to the world. Cork-based Infant Research Centre is a great example of a local and award-winning company that is using AI to solve global healthcare issues. Their AI-based technology uses deep learning to detect neonatal seizures, which is based on a faster, more lightweight algorithm that needs fewer saved parameters and memory, and so can run on mobile devices such as tablet<\/span>s<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On a more practical level, AI has the power to improve the overall customer journey. In fact, ESB Networks was honoured at the most recent AI\u00a0<\/span>A<\/span>wards. Th<\/span>ey are using<\/span>\u00a0AI-based smart meter technology<\/span>\u00a0to<\/span>\u00a0process<\/span>\u202fimages of legacy and smart meters\u00a0<\/span>to support\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0national\u00a0rollout of the smart meter program<\/span>me<\/span>.\u202fThese images are automatically\u00a0classified\u00a0and readings are extracted by a backend process which identifies issues for review and drives an ongoing quality improvement process, ensuring delivery of a higher quality service to Irish customers.\u202fSo, these almost invisible improvements, through the automation of systems and processes, will bring efficiency across multiple industries, which will boost productivity and allow businesses to focus on other core areas of their business.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall,\u202fIreland is in a great position to drive AI-technology\u00a0innovation\u00a0but we need to get the building blocks right to set us up for success.\u202f<\/span>It\u2019s something that we\u2019re very\u00a0<\/span>focused<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>on\u00a0<\/span>in Microsoft and why<\/span>\u00a0one of our\u00a0<\/span>priorities is to invest in\u00a0<\/span>digital skills<\/span>\u00a0to support people in Ireland to gain the right skills to prepare for the future.\u00a0<\/span>W<\/span>e\u2019re investing over \u20ac5 million in our Dream Space program<\/span>me<\/span>\u00a0to educate over 100,000 kids and their teachers on technology, AI, and coding. We\u2019ve also developed an AI School<\/a><\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0which offers a master class series for business leaders to empower them to be successful and get results from AI.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kieran McCorry<\/p>\n

National Technology Officer at Microsoft Ireland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m looking forward to participating on a panel discussion at this year\u2019s AI Summit to discuss how Ireland can be more successful with AI. The first thing to note here is that industry\u00a0research\u00a0places Ireland\u2019s pace at adopting AI as a little slower than other Europe regions. This is based on\u00a0a number of\u00a0factors from regulatory issues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":295280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"class_list":["post-295277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-none-en-ie","specials-transform-en-ie","stories-data-insights-intelligence-en-ie","stories-how-can-i-use-ai-en-ie-data-insights-intelligence-en-ie","businessPriorities-data-ai-en-ie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295277"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431033,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295277\/revisions\/431033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulse.microsoft.com\/en-ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}