20 May 2021 – CargoNow Exhibition and Logisym Asia Pacific Conference 2021 brought together businesses and participants ranging from transportation, networks, ports, hubs, terminals, supporting products & services, infrastructure, regulators, postal operators, and CEP, technology & e-commerce, logistics, G.S.A. & shippers. The conference gathered and exchanged thought leaders, shippers, service providers, and end-users spanning today’s cargo world’s complete ecosystem.

Ada Lim, Co-Founder of Gleematic, was invited to be one of the panel speakers in the “AI & Automation – a Novelty Today, Perhaps, but a Necessity for Tomorrow” session. This roundtable discussion focuses on reviewing the roadmap to the exciting transformation journey of adopting AI and Automation technologies.

The discussion was attended by other leaders of solution providers, which provided us thought-provoking points of view. Here are some key discussions that were brought to the virtual meeting.

Is AI Becoming More Mainstream?

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have infiltrated sectors such as retail, finance, and healthcare to automate manual, time-consuming activities and streamline operations. Employees gain the freedom to concentrate more of their energy on deep thought and more innovative production as more routine and time-intensive tasks, such as data cleansing and unification, are automated with AI systems.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a cutting-edge technology. With market advancements in evidence, enterprises are clearly on track to greater AI adoption in the future. Whether that comes in the form of machine learning algorithms or intelligent campaign orchestration is an open question, but the reality is that AI will become more important to operations over time. Over time, customer demands for a real-time, in-context experience will grow.

What are the challenges of AI deployment?

1. Shortage of AI Talent

Experienced data scientists and AI experts are rare and difficult to find in organizations in all industries. Data scientists, machine learning engineers, software architects, BI analysts, and SMEs are all required for AI projects. Many companies lack these resources and cannot afford to dedicate them to a single data-science initiative.

2. Data Quality

Access to clean, meaningful, high-quality data is important for AI projects to succeed, but it can be difficult to fulfilled by many companies. For example, in the manufacturing sector, data is frequently skewed, out-of-date, and rife with errors, which can be caused by a variety of factors.

Integration Challenge

Integrating AI into the current frameworks is a more involved method than installing a browser plugin. It’s time to set up the interface and elements that will meet the company’s needs. There are several rules that are hard-coded. We must think about data infrastructure, data storage, marking, and data feeding into the device.

Can you really achieve a fully automated environment?

It’s important to remember that most occupations are made up of multiple subsets of tasks from various domains that require a diverse set of skills. Communication, numerical calculations, logical reasoning, data aggregation, analytics, ingenuity, and social skills can all be required for a job. 

As a result, even though it is possible to automate some sub-tasks of a macro-task using different frameworks, it might not be possible to combine them to completely automate the macro-task.

Humanity would be able to automate certain tasks, decide not to automate others, and not be able to automate them at all in some cases.

The major change in the next 5-10 years of automation

The panel speakers agree that one of AI’s greatest benefits is its ability to relieve humans of boring routine activities that are part of their overall responsibilities, allowing them to concentrate on more complex and satisfying projects — or simply take some much-needed time off.

We will be having colleagues who are not human. The cost of AI deployment will also go down tremendously as it will become a mainstream thing. Communities would emerge and exchange AI knowledge or solutions. To make it simple, the power of AI will be at the fingertips of everyone, said Ada Lim.  

We thank Logisym Singapore for offering us the opportunity to participate in this program. We are thrilled to continue our growth in the automation market to empower humans to do creative, strategic, and compassionate work, all while making the world a better place.