Artificial Intelligence’s Brief Day in the Sun

Attending the World Summit AI conference in Amsterdam this week gave me a strong sense of déjà vu, harkening back to the Internet World conferences of the late 1990s. As with those events, World Summit AI displayed a schizophrenic combination of business solutions and technology offerings.

The schizophrenia didn’t end there. While the buzz was predictably centered on generative AI, there was plenty of talk about machine learning, computer vision, and other flavors of the technology.

For its part, the gen AI conversation was solidly in its “anti-hype hype” phase. Cheerleading for gen AI is now oh-so-2023. At this conference, the focus was on putting on the brakes.

How do we make AI serve people, not the other way around? What about security and compliance? Is gen AI good for more than slapping conversational interfaces on last year’s technology? And when will we ever come to our senses about gen AI’s flagrant consumption of natural resources?

AI for Business

Several exhibitors showed off various business solutions. Netherlands-based Struck.build BV displayed its AI-based solutions for the construction industry. Its offering helps real estate developers tackle compliance challenges.

AQ22 UAB from Lithuania leverages gen AI to process business loans, highlighting elements in documents that human analysts need to pay attention to. Voxdiscover BV offers AI-based market research at a lower price point.

While these vendors set out to build gen AI-based solutions, Germany’s iqast created its supply chain forecasting software before the gen AI wave. Iqast leverages computational intelligence for credible predictions across complex scenarios.

Innovative solutions catering to the evolving needs of businesses.

AI Platforms: Building and Scaling Applications

There were a handful of tech standouts offering various AI platforms. Florida-based Airia offers an AI orchestration platform that helps organizations leverage various models to build and deploy AI-based applications.

Nebius B.V. also offers a platform for building AI applications, utilizing GPU-powered hardware. While Orq.ai supports collaboration between business and technical people in building AI-based applications.

Zetane Systems Inc. offers a low-code interface supporting AI models for image and video.

Exploring the landscape of AI application development platforms.

The Exciting but Short Lifespan of AI Conferences

I expect the AI conference landscape to take the same course as Internet World. Vendors hawking business applications will abandon ship, as AI is just another tool in the enterprise’s technology toolbelt.

As professionals within the AI ecosystem move toward more general-purpose technology conferences, the specific AI-centric gatherings will likely continue to dwindle. In the meantime, however, the industry should take advantage of this overhyped technology’s brief day in the sun.

Speculating the future of AI conferences in an evolving tech landscape.