French companies, lured by the promises of generative artificial intelligence, are on the starting line, including in low-tech sectors (AFP/Archives/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)
Robots capable of answering complex questions and sophisticated virtual assistants: French companies, lured by the promises of generative artificial intelligence (AI), are on the starting line, including in low-tech sectors.
From AI in phone calls or to assist caregivers, the range is vast.
On his computer, Matthieu Brun-Bellut, the IT director of Vitalliance, demonstrates the new robot from this home help company. Thanks to the in-house AI-powered “bot”, which is about to enter service and which will eventually be accessible via an application on their phone, employees will be able to get quick answers without having to damage their eyesight in the 400 pages of company manual.
“This manual is a large document, with changes made regularly. It is tedious for an employee to constantly search for what has been modified,” he argues. For a few thousand euros, the company therefore developed this new tool.
This results in a conversational robot “capable of responding as if it knew all the instructions for all our professions, a sort of +super Mr. Vitalliance+ who knows everything about our company”, explains the specialist. A tool that will even be able to provide a fair answer — in terms of labor law — to a question like: “A patient urinated on me, what should I do?”.
The company will then have to pay its service provider, in this case Amazon Web Services (AWS), based on the number of questions asked to the “chatbot”.
The technological sectors are no longer the only ones concerned by so-called generative AI, which emerged thanks to the launch at the end of 2022 of the conversational robot ChatGPT by the American OpenAI.
“I was surprised, all kinds of companies have contacted us over the past year and a half,” says Xavier Perret, France director of Azure, the cloud platform of the American giant Microsoft, which offers its customers the opportunity to develop their own “bot”.
“I think we are at the start of a new technological wave,” he adds. “Everyone will be required to integrate generative AI tools, particularly in sectors that have a lot of customer relationships.”
According to a study conducted by Strand Partners for AWS, a third of companies are already trying AI solutions in Europe. In France, the number of companies having adopted AI increased to 27% in 2023. “A common use case with which many companies are starting generative AI is to index the gigantic quantities of unstructured documents that “they own”, explains Stephan Hadinger, technical director of AWS France.
– Job –
Real estate agencies, not necessarily associated with high-end “tech”, are potentially part of this. This is also one of the projects developed by Damien Schmitt, co-founder of Atyos, a consulting firm which implements various AI tools.
Areas of application of AI research (AFP/Valentin RAKOVSKY, Paz PIZARRO)
“We work with a real estate agency which publishes management software. It is difficult for a person in a trustee to have in mind the entire history of a 30-year-old co-ownership,” he describes to AFP. “With this new system, we will have all the co-ownership documents analyzed to find quick answers.”
Ultimately, AI could be everywhere. Atyos thus works with a telephone support service. “With AI, we are able to analyze in real time the mood of the interlocutor in front of us. This makes it possible to give indications to the operator on which axis to push.”
The players contacted by AFP speak of significant productivity gains. At the risk of layoffs? A Goldman Sachs study last year estimated that two thirds of professions could be partially automated thanks to AI. Which could destroy up to 300 million jobs worldwide. A sensitive subject among the actors interviewed, who defend themselves against it.
“IT transforms jobs,” admits Matthieu Brun-Bellut. “But in my job where I have difficulty recruiting, it will just make the work more fluid.”
© 2024 AFP
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