Even top performers aren't safe from the AI shakeup
Impact felt from C-suite to IT professionals.
AI is changing how we work, even for the tech experts and developers at the forefront. And the layoffs at tech giants is the canary in the coal mine.
This was one of the takeaways at this year’s edition of apidays Singapore at MBS, a significantly larger venue that was nonetheless jam-packed with attendees.
AI is redefining work
In his opening keynote, GovTech's Sau Sheong Chang traced the development of AI from ML to foundational AI and generative AI for the standing-room-only crowd.
And top tech giants have reported success with AI, with Amazon claiming to have saved US$260M using AI and Meta predicting AI agents will replace mid-level engineers.
A techie at heart, Sau Sheong showed off two demos he put together for the presentation, using AI agents to prioritise support tickets by looking at priority, historical resolution, and SLA levels.
Challenges remain, however:
- Rapid changes make it hard to keep up.
- Tech giants are shedding thousands of jobs.
- Integration complexity is an issue even with MCP*.
*Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Use AI for leverage, not speed
In his keynote, VP Analyst and Gartner Fellow Manjunath (Manju) Bhat noted that CEOs are now asking for multi-agent systems to potentially replace business units.
So even top performers are not immune now.
While AI agents can offer massive advantages, it can also be a security nightmare with a breakdown in the segregation of duties - especially with humans in the loop.
Speak of irony.
In closing, Manju advised companies to use AI for leverage, not speed (or productivity).
I find this the most intriguing. He suggests using AI to:
- Learn new technologies.
- Boost creativity as a competitive advantage.
- Solve problems that we couldn't solve before.
Day 2 of Apidays continues on Wednesday.
Were you there today? How did it go for you?