Two leading Thai tech consultancies showcase practical AI solutions based on the world-class Microsoft Azure cloud platform
Bangkok, May 25, 2018 – Microsoft Thailand, together with leading enterprise-grade AI solution developers Digital Dialogue Co., Ltd. and Frontis Co., Ltd., underlined the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform businesses, enable new consumer experiences, and solve fundamental issues in society using advances such as identity recognition and automated conversational responses. These AI capabilities are ready for deployment in Thailand today through a diverse range of tools available on the world-class, most-trusted Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
“A study jointly conducted by Microsoft and IDC earlier this year predicts that 40% of all digital transformation initiatives in 2019 will involve support from AI systems in some way. By 2020, over 85% of businesses will have already adopted AI technology,” said Dhanawat Suthumpun, Managing Director, Microsoft (Thailand) Limited. “These trends reaffirm our viewpoint that the world has now entered the era of the Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge – where advanced, intelligent capabilities from the cloud are shared and made accessible through devices that users of every level experience on a daily basis.”
Microsoft predicts that 50% of applications available in the market by the end of 2018 will employ some form of AI technology, while the use of bots and AI systems to engage with customers will continue to grow in popularity before eventually taking up 95% of all business-to-consumer conversations by 2025.
Today, virtually all Microsoft products and services include AI-driven features to provide greater convenience and raise productivity for users. These features range from automated design ideas for PowerPoint slides and recommended trends unearthed from raw data in Excel to various intelligent features for business operations – including sales, operations, customer service, and more – in Dynamics 365.
Microsoft’s AI and cloud platforms are also open for developers to bring to life their own vision of AI – including systems that work for humans, work on behalf of humans, and assist humans in making decisions – through a comprehensive range of tools and services available on the Azure cloud platform, from ready-made AI functions to data and AI development frameworks that support a wide variety of standards embraced by developers.
Data, people, understanding: the three factors driving AI adoption
In addition to products and services on offer from software developers and platform operators, the proliferation of AI relies on three major factors:
- Data – How data is discovered, gathered, filtered, and stored
- People – Skilled workforce capable of adapting and utilizing data in an insightful manner
- Understanding – In addition to the technical capabilities of AI designers and developers, public trust and confidence in the AI’s ability to operate effectively and efficiently have an equally significant impact in driving AI adoption
“Public understanding of AI technology is a delicate matter,” added Dhanawat. “Technology aside, the use of AI to create genuine benefits to society on a large scale can only happen once there is a clear set of standards in data privacy, operational transparency, and accountability for AI designers and developers. The ultimate goal of AI development is not to replace the human workforce but to amplify human ingenuity and empower us to do more, do better, or do things never before thought possible.”
Leading IT consultancy firms highlight Thailand’s readiness for AI
Digital Dialogue and Frontis, two of Thailand’s leading IT consultancy companies, took this opportunity to provide a glimpse of how AI technology can be applied in practical business situations and Thailand’s readiness on technological and infrastructural levels to embrace AI-driven innovations.
“AI and bots can enhance communications between businesses, employees, and customers or even make it simpler to do business in ways that are tailor-made to match the needs of each organization,” said Jidapa Vattanapakdee, Deputy Managing Director of Digital Dialogue. “The implementation of AI in a business context is no longer a distant possibility as our CUBIK Chat solution can be implemented in just two months. These bots can cope with a much higher volume of inquiries from customers compared to human operators, interact conversationally in Thai through Natural Language Processing (NLP), handle transactions such as bill payments, product purchases, or flight and hotel bookings, and pass on complicated questions to human supervisors for seamless resolution. These features provide businesses with an opportunity to serve customers with greater efficiency and increase sales. Additionally, the bot is equipped with machine learning technology, which allows it to grow in capability through the use of data generated by customer interactions as materials for future learning.”
Digital Dialogue’s CUBIK Chat bot can be deployed in a wide variety of situations. One example is a chatbot for internal communications on behalf of the human resources department, providing information on employee benefits on an individual level. The bot may recommend the best periods to take a vacation or provide alerts when certain benefits are approaching their expiry date. Furthermore, this bot technology has been implemented as “Fah” – the official chatbot for Thai Airways International.
Meanwhile, FRONTIS, a leading consultancy specialized in Strategy Consulting and Digital Transformation, demonstrated the use of Cognitive Services on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, enabling AI for transformation use cases in multiple industries – such as the recognition and comparison of three-dimensional facial scans for building access control and security purposes, personalization of products and services based on predictive analytics, or identity verification in financial services.
Prin Boondiskulchok, Managing Partner, FRONTIS, said, “The digital age is undergoing yet another key shift from the “Mobile First, Cloud First” world to an “AI-First” World. Cognitive Services allow AI to fulfil a wider spectrum of use cases. Facial recognition technology alone can be used to enhance convenience, security and efficiency in many industry use cases, such as providing access control, or presenting special privileges to store members and regular customers. Furthermore, the recognition process can be carried out without violating the user’s privacy by recording only coordinate data from facial scans instead of full facial photos. By configuring the facial scan database set to purge itself every 24 hours, we can put into place a series of sturdy defences that prevent any data from being leaked or misused.”
Microsoft cloud sets new standard for data privacy through full compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The enforcement of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) today (May 25) represents a significant step forward in ensuring the security and privacy of every Internet user – including both citizens of EU member nations and other countries with communication or business ties to persons and organizations from these nations. All businesses serving EU-national customers or engaging with EU-based organizations are required to comply with the framework of GDPR.
Since the adoption of GDPR two years ago, Microsoft assigned over 1,600 engineers with the task of enhancing our products and services to meet the standards of GDPR. Today, our customers can rest assured that all Microsoft offerings are fully GDPR compliant.
Microsoft is also ready to extend core privacy rights under the GDPR framework for customers and users worldwide. Every user has the right to know what data Microsoft collects from the usage of our products and services, and this data can be corrected, deleted, or even transferred somewhere else. These capabilities can be accessed through the Privacy Dashboard at https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/. For additional information on Microsoft’s compliance with GDPR and tools to assist organizations seeking to achieve compliance, visit https://www.microsoft.com/GDPR/.
Further information and an in-depth look into the AI capabilities of Microsoft Azure – plus a free trial offer – can be found at https://azure.microsoft.com/.