How the La Spezia industrial sector is approaching digital transformation and what impact artificial intelligence is producing and will produce. In the world of an economy that gallops towards inevitable change in an attempt to build a governable future, this is one of the key, highly topical themes that moves entrepreneurs and companies, managers and consultants. This perpetual challenge, in full and continuous evolution, was discussed this afternoon in a crowded conference room of the Confindustria of La Spezia.
The opportunity was decidedly tempting for the companies in the provincial area called together to participate in the initiative promoted by the association that brings together industrialists from La Spezia: a decidedly successful call given that there isn’t a free seat in the Confindustria room.
The premise is clear: there is a new way of doing business that contemplates artificial intelligence and immersive reality technologies, both at a conceptual level and through concrete case studies developed by Digital Innovation Hub Liguria and GEA Digital. The proceedings were opened by Mario Gerini, president of Confindustria La Spezia, who briefly recalled how “digital transformation and artificial intelligence are revolutionizing the entire industrial sector”, also recalling that the topic was addressed in the recent G7.
Tito Zavanella, president of GEA and GEA Digital, presented a “consulting company” with 60 years of experience which in this last period has emancipated itself despite the mutability of the digital field. Build a “digital advisory board” to stay connected, says Andrea Teja, a professional from La Spezia who emigrated to Milan and director of Gea Digital who focuses on the current context: “The internet is the fifth industrial revolution, it lasted thirty years and is over . Now we are in the sixth with artificial intelligence which is a bit like the internet in the 90s. Two weeks ago we were in Paris and to the recurring question of where we will be in a year and the answer is that no one knows. The impact of this wave is so significant that if companies do not ride it they will exit the market. The corporate strategy is at the center of everything, a CEO becomes a necessary figure and, this applies to all companies, it is necessary to get involved in updating the IT infrastructure: “Either you work to optimize the operational machine or for the best customer experience or you create new sources of value”, explains Teja, dividing the transformation strategy between organic and inorganic innovation.
The presentation of the “Digital Innovation Hub Liguria” will be done by Guido Conforti, director of DIH Liguria. A company founded in 2017 and which today develops its activities in six different areas: business orientation, digital training, innovative start-ups and open innovation, high-tech development in the area, study center and research projects, communication and marketing of innovation. “An initial assessment phase followed by the processing of the data by DiH and finally the return of the report”. Conforti speaks of “twin transitions of digital and sustainability” which are accelerating the speed with which they are applied to the competitive context of businesses. Conforti mentions Scout&map among the projects promoted by Dhi Liguria and the weekly CoffeeTech initiative, open to all. With a basic certainty: “The use of generative artificial intelligence is certainly acquiring a central role even more rapidly”.
From the initial descriptive AI (1970-80) to the predictive one (1990-2000) passing through the prescriptive one (2010-20) up to today’s generative AI, the one we recognize with ChatGpt: particularly interesting for the industrialists who attended, the panel on “Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI” by Andrea Cantone, client director of Alkemy and by Andrea Teja himself. The data is incredible: “ChatGpt brought together 1 million users in five days, in 18 months they became two billion people. It is the extent of this wave and this explains why we cannot answer where we will be in a year. But all this certainly brings advantages to companies: with little investment you can reach a use case. Going into practice, Teja provides a series of guidelines to be effective, following some basic rules to better use the ChatGpt tool, particularly in the “auto” mode (but there are also others, between people, between people and machines and also between machines only): “Define the role (who we are and what we do), clarify the context, provide indications on the tone and format of expression, provide some examples perhaps by copying and pasting my last ten emails so as to take inspiration from the writing style ”.
