Artificial intelligence (AI) is already one of the most important technologies of the future for many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In many cases, however, bavarian SMEs are asking themselves whether the technology will actually bring the competitive advantages they are hoping for and how its introduction can best succeed. What diverse potential AI offers and what steps are necessary to successfully set up AI applications in one's own company, these and other questions were answered by AI experts from research and practice at this year's conference "AI for SMEs".
For participants planning to get started with AI or who have had little contact with it so far, fortiss researcher Dr. Julian Wörmann presented a compact introduction to the topic of AI, introduced application areas and gave an outlook on current trends from the field of machine learning. For those who are planning the use of AI in the company in a timely and concrete manner, Dr. Till Klein from the appliedAI Initiative gave valuable tips on how the implementation of the first AI application can be successful while saving resources and nerves on the basis of the business game of the Zukunftszentrum Süd.
Instructive experiences from practice
AI is one of the crucial technological fields of the future and the competencies in this field are already diverse and comprehensive in Bavaria. For this reason, the focus of this year's event was, among other things, on successful use cases and promising applications directly from practice, for example from the areas of energy generation, smart cities and natural language processing. Also reporting from the field was Dr. Johanna Farnhammer, who is project manager for the "KI Transfer Plus (AI Transfer Plus)" program at the appliedAI Initiative. She was able to accompany six medium-sized companies in the introduction of AI and drew many profitable, but also many instructive experiences from it.
Networking is the first successful step
In order for Bavaria to maintain its position as a leading technology location in the digital future, it must keep pace with the high international development speed in the field of AI. This makes it all the more important to have a strong network of research, companies and partners like the IHK Munich & Upper Bavaria, which can send target-oriented impulses to small and medium-sized enterprises. Just like this year's "Conference AI for SMEs", which once again offered an initial introduction to the topic of AI and excellent networking opportunities.
