On the 6-7th of November 2024, the Financial Times hosted their annual Future of AI Summit. The event brought together global experts from technology, business, and policy to discuss the evolving landscape of AI, focusing on key innovations and the challenges ahead. The summit's emphasis on AI-powered enterprises, responsible regulation, and the economic impact of AI aligns closely with SONAR's mission to implement ethical AI technologies that enhance outcomes across health within Criminal Justice. Our Head of Emerging Technologies and Solutions, Joe Doyle, was in attendance to gain vital insights from the demoes, workshops and talks held throughout the two-day event. The event agenda including speakers and topics covered can be found here.
Summit Goals and Major Discussions
The summit aimed to assess the latest advancements in AI across the globe and address the challenges companies face when integrating AI into their operations.
Geoff Dryer and Josephine Teo during the opening keynote speech at the Future of AI Summit
Keynote speakers and discussions at the summit highlighted AI's transformative potential across industries. Singapore’s Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information, revealed that 65,000 government employees now use a secure ChatGPT system and have created 7,000 AI agents to perform routine tasks, illustrating that AI adoption is already underway.
Peter Kyle, UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, stated the UK government forecast the AI industry going from £1 billion to £6.5 billion by 2035. This was backed by Clare Barclay, President of Enterprise and Industry for Microsoft EMEA, discussing a landmark deal has been made with the UK government to further utilise AI ensuring that privacy and data protection with the use of AI in the ecosystem would match that of their 365-product suite used around the globe. To meet these projected demands Microsoft are currently deploying a new datacentre every 3 days!
For companies jumping on board now it is important to note AI adoption is still in its early adopter phase as highlighted by Ana Paula Assis, Chair and General Manager of IBM EMEA. She gave a refreshing statistic on how approximately 1% of companies have onboarded their data over to some form of AI application. Parallel to this, in one of the keynote speeches for “AI on the world stage”, involving Nikos Loutas, Director of Innovation at NATO and Cristina Vanberghen, Professor and Senior Expert at the European Commission, we learned some of these use cases involved a wide range of industries. From smaller models natively hosted in hospitals managing data transfers and forms, monitoring resources to tackle wildfires, a combined effort with META and the US government to create a cybersecurity-based AI and even interest from NATO for civilian and military purposes.
Driving Innovation in the Face of the EU AI Act Workshop
Novel insights and reassurances were provided in the “Driving Innovation in the Face of the EU AI Act” workshop hosted by the global law firm, DLA Piper.
Open discussions took place with multiple businesses about the current state of their AI governance in place. Examples laid out by DLA Piper on just how to write your companies AI policy from a practical standpoint. The discussions became a blend of addressing the variances between the need for model vs use case regulation and the right path forward when navigating the nuances between both the UK and EU AI acts. Mentioned were the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) voluntary frameworks and the arrival of the EU AI Act templates expected to arrive in 2025 from the EU’s AI Office. This will provide further guidance and an approach industry can take to remain compliant under the EU AI Act.
One of the main takeaways was that employees everywhere want to use AI to aid their work. A clear change in sentiment is forming where company representatives came out stating how there was a noticeable uptake in the use of AI which needed relevant policies and governance structures agnostic to the given industry that they came from. An example was given of a company that prevented work emails from being used with certain known AI services like ChatGPT. Stemming from this they saw a tenfold increase in the use of personal emails sending AI generated content to their corresponding company emails instead.
Conclusion: Reflections and SONAR’s Commitment to Responsible AI
The Financial Times Future of AI Summit 2024 attracted over six hundred senior decision-makers, including executives, data scientists, AI leaders, and policymakers, facilitating rich exchanges of ideas and potential collaborations.
For SONAR, it was an invaluable opportunity to connect with like-minded professionals and explore partnerships to advance AI-driven innovation in Health and Justice, underscoring our dedication to responsible AI implementation. The summit reinforced SONAR's belief in collaboration, ethical standards, and informed dialogue as AI integrates into business and society.
A special thank you to the Financial Times team for hosting this event and fostering such meaningful discussions on the future of AI.
John White
Founder and CEO
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