Modern Applications: Exploring business opportunity with Gen AI

How organizations are approaching generative AI is reminiscent of the slow launch of the internet towards the end of the last century.

Firstly, there were the tech visionaries who foresaw how disruptive the technology might be. Secondly, there was the media attention which focused on both the positive and negative sides of the nascent internet. And thirdly, there were the companies, both large and small, who tried to figure out how they might respond.

When it comes to Gen AI, we’re definitely in the third group. Whether colleagues are playing around with ChatGPT or IT departments are migrating data to the cloud with the potential to utilize Gen AI, an exploration of sorts is already taking place.

Yet how should you turn an ad-hoc interest in Gen AI into an actual business opportunity?

Broadly speaking, the business opportunities for Gen AI can be categorized in three distinct areas: Beside, Inside, and Outside.

1. Beside

These opportunities relate to the use cases around cloud native developments, in particular, application modernization and how Gen AI can bring about a productivity boost to the end-to-end software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Gen AI’s proven ability to write, review, and optimize code, while also being able to test and detect bugs, creates business opportunities from the get-go. In some scenarios, Gen AI is best viewed as a copilot assisting developers in rudimentary and repetitive tasks, yet when applied to testing, it can reduce the associated labor costs dramatically.

A quicker, smarter and more flexible approach to software development fits in with the competitive pace of our business world. The ability to outperform competitors by adopting new technology quickly and securely gives you an instant business edge as you will have more options.

And more options mean more business chances, which leads to more customers and increased revenue.

It’s time to review your SDLC and see how Gen AI can revolutionize it.

2. Inside

Inside refers to AI powered application development scenarios when smart applications are built on data platforms running large language models (LLMs). Arguably, LLMs are the most discussed aspect of Gen AI as their use case is easily demonstrated and freely available.

Using LLMs at scale, via the cloud, will bring the benefit of service innovation and better customer experience in two ways. Firstly, LLMs are transforming how customers communicate with organizations via chatbots which possess the ability to converse intelligently with humans. The more we talk and trust chatbots, the more accepted and necessary they will become.

Secondly, once your data is on the cloud, LLMs can analyze it with an efficiency unmatched by humans. Furthermore, LLMs can be used in a conversational manner by business analysts to examine data, as opposed to only developers writing queries.

Having LLMs converse with your customers, while allowing business users to interact with vast troves of data in plain language has clear revenue-increasing benefits to any organization.

It’s time to start a conversation with Gen AI.

3. Outside

Outside – generative AI scenarios are helping to integrate, orchestrate different systems, end to end workflow automation through AI agents to bring operation excellence and cost reduction for business.

As mentioned, once you have moved data to the cloud, you can start your exploration of Gen AI, and in particular, how it can help you develop workflows which incorporate different systems in different locations.

In some ways, this is the biggest leap you will face as it challenges traditional architectural processes. By using Agile philosophy aided by Gen AI, you can develop workflows which connect disparate systems in different cloud locations. This will allow you to quickly explore new technologies without the investment required if you were installing them on-prem. If the technologies work for you, the scalable nature of the cloud means that you can roll out solutions far quicker, with less resources, and investment.

Gen AI allows you to start small, learn the ropes of new and emerging tech, and scale up to a level which perfectly matches your business requirements at any given time.

It’s time to rethink your approach to your DevOps architecture.

Gen AI is democratizing IT

Ultimately, Gen AI is democratizing IT.

From a coding perspective, it can perform tasks in a way that humans simply cannot. With LLMs, it allows business analysts and others to query vast data sets, while customers can have better user experiences interacting with your company. In conjunction with the cloud, it frees organizations from committing to and investing heavily in one or more on-prem systems, thus allowing you to move swiftly between emerging technologies with little or no economic impact.

Remarkably, all of these advantages are available to organizations, regardless of your size.

Sogeti and Microsoft have been strategic partners for more than 25 years. Together to demonstrate the strength in our technical alignment we bring you the latest eBook: ‘Start in control and stay in control – five cloud native adoption principles for enterprises’.