On Dublin Tech Summit 2024
Like many, I spent a few days last week attending the Dublin Tech Summit . While AI was front and centre as expected, there were some more tempered conversations amongst the hype. But there was plenty of hype...like the inimitable Kate Minogue suggested in her post “Dublin AI Summit?”. In fact at one point, a panel host joked, "Remember blockchain and crypto? Well, this year it's AI."
I did in fact manage to join a Web3/blockchain session, though I largely self-selected into the AI-oriented sessions. Here's a brief overview and takeaways:
Sessions Day 1:
AI Now and Next, a Fireside Chat with Sir Martin Sorrell: Sir Martin was his usual erudite and insightful self, covering geopolitics, the confluence of multiple vectors on the immediate future, and the intersection of geography and technology. He commented on Scott Galloway 's reflections on AI company market cap. vs. revenue and the allusion to an AI bubble. He also discussed media planning, buying, and creative headcount contraction, but wasn't hyperbolic. Opportunities for hyper-personalisation with Gen AI was mentioned - and would be repeated across the two days in various sessions. Another recurring and important topic was data organisation – the urgency for companies to get their data in order, especially unstructured data, would be a theme throughout the event.
AI Founders Debate: Is AI going to be bigger than the internet?: This session explored how AI implementation will manifest, with a highlight from Umesh Sachdev on the potential usefulness of Small Language Models with narrow but deep training sets and use cases. The panel discussed how we are currently in the AI infrastructure layer phase, with the application layer soon to kick off, spurring innovation. Questions about convergence, privacy, data ownership, and value exchange were raised.
Embracing innovation: Navigating the AI revolution in a complex business: The topic of data organisation came up again here, in the context of how organisational structures will need to be considered to avoid AI as a "bolt-on" to existing principles.
Navigating the Web3 Revolution: Insights on blockchain best practices: An interesting, if slightly in the weeds conversation that highlighted the need for blockchain to find its consumer-facing solution (and language) – something AI has managed more quickly. The convergence of AI and blockchain was emphasised but “best practice” remained a nebulous concept despite Monty Munford's best efforts to extract a unfied point of view. That said, the session was engaging and it was a little unfortunate it was the only web3 session at the summit (as far as I could see).
How AI is chaining remote work: An insightful and practical conversation about meaningful AI applications, from Gen AI’s utility in summarising asynchronous (and voluminous) chat threads, to AI companions alleviating remote work isolation. The need for a paradigm shift in how we approach remote/hybrid work was discussed, moving beyond "like before, but remote" to thoughtful discussions about the reality of new ways of working, operationally, structurally and with a keen eye on employee wellbeing.
Sessions Day 2:
Marketers, Get Real with AI: Wesley Haar, ter of Media.Monks gave a compelling presentation on how Media.Monks is responding to Generative AI's potential to "collapse the marketing workflow." They aim to harness and embrace the change rather than be disrupted by it. This is a presentation I would like to see again.
Next-Gen Retail Experiences: Harnessing the Power of AI Across Digital & Physical Channels: Key takeaways included the use of Gen AI to shrink choice through personalisation and curation. We see examples of this already with products like Shopping Muse by Mastercard ’s Dynamic Yield. Other areas of impact include cost management through stock control and SKU management, and the potential to collapse supply chain and lifecycle timelines.
Romantic AI, Virtual Influencers, & Immersive Sex Tech: This session explored the benefits and risks of online influence, AI intimates, AI in managing parasocial relationships, AI companionship, and Gen AI influencers. Also…smart sex toys!
Driving in my Sentient City: Smart cars and smart cities, with the core discussion on how to scale. This conversation had me pondering accessibility - how does autonomy and smart cities scale in developing markets with less infrastructure?
Innovating Change: Healthtech solutions for better patient outcomes: This session showcased innovation in healthcare, though the dependency on commercial viability struck me. Aside from drug design innovation that protein folding will likely impact and the boom from new classes of drugs like GLP1’s, how can innovation (and commercial viability) arrive at less common conditions where scale is lower but patient impact equally high?
Future Proof: Navigating AI & Digital Change: Transformation will happen at different velocities by department and function and this needs management and some form of macro oversight - ultimately Ai implimentaiton is a change management exercise.
Like all tectonic shifts in how businesses operate and technology is implemented there is a need for speed and agility while being considered and practical. The AI genie is absolutely out of the bottle, but we ought to be thoughtful about what we wish for!
All in all DTS24 was a worthwhile few days and it was great to see so many friends and colleagues. After a year of efficiency that impacted the Dublin tech scene pretty severely, there seems to be a lot of energy in the sector if DTS24 is anything to go by.
A special thanks to Martina Fitzgerald and Scale Ireland for membership tickets.
