Artificial Intelligence and SMEs: New and Concrete Opportunities

Giacomo and Alessio, the brains and the mind. The technician and the philosopher. Founding partners of NovaEgo, a young and dynamic company dedicated to addressing a specific market need: providing a bespoke digital strategy, tailored to the client. Not a traditional web agency, but a highly flexible organization capable of analyzing client needs, defining a strategy, and building the tools needed to achieve and optimize it. Giacomo Penuti, within Ag46 Invest srl, handles the more technical aspects of artificial intelligence, while Alessio Astolfi handles the more philosophical aspects, related to marketing and communications.

"NovaEgo was founded in 2014, when we realized there was a huge need among Italian and international companies for solutions to digital needs that went beyond traditional agencies' offerings. We analyzed potential clients' needs and proposed solutions, from marketing to advertising, while also leveraging the power of artificial intelligence," they explain.

Giacomo and Alessio, why can't anyone in this historical moment do without digital?

In our daily lives, we increasingly find ourselves dealing with electronic devices, from PCs to phones to TVs. We search for all kinds of information online, try to hire someone on LinkedIn, and more. Digital is everywhere in our lives.

Why is digital transformation essential for the survival of SMEs?

First and foremost, for competitiveness reasons, if digital transformation doesn't happen in a given company, it will happen in its competitor anyway. Optimizing internal processes impacts both better decisions and process performance. Falling behind the market isn't an option for any company. In Italy, we've largely understood this, but there's still some hesitation. This is a bit disappointing, because sometimes choosing whether to invest in digitalization becomes a matter of principle rather than market.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most debated topics of the moment, for many it still remains an abstract and distant concept, instead it is already a palpable reality, where above all?

Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that aims to enable computer systems to perform tasks that would be typical of the human mind. We already have many of these types in our everyday lives: weak, strong, generative, and existential. When we think of artificial intelligence today, we tend to think of generative intelligence, such as ChaGPT, but in reality, Alexa and Siri are already AI devices. The most advanced form is strong intelligence, which allows for not just a single task but many different activities. Existential intelligence, on the other hand, is, let's say, the kind found in science fiction films where artificial intelligence is a soul.

What types of companies can benefit from artificial intelligence and how?

Any company may need it, as long as it processes data in digital format, which is now quite widespread. On the other hand, processes that can be facilitated include data cataloging, predictive processes such as warehouse replenishment, and optimization processes, such as identifying the best production sequence. Generally, it can be applied in any company.

How did the collaboration with Alberto Birtele and Dwa Consulting come about? What kind of path could it take?

It was born because we realized there's a great deal of interest in artificial intelligence in the business community, but the question was always, where do I start? How do I begin to introduce artificial intelligence into my processes? It's unrealistic to think it would permeate all company processes. This collaboration was born to provide the opportunity to explore together what innovations the introduction of artificial intelligence can bring, to maximize the resources the company has available.

What type of investment should you plan?

When we talk about budgets, we think about how much I can spend in relation to how much it can bring me, thinking about how much I can save, but also and above all about how many errors these new processes have avoided, both in terms of internal processes and in terms of the quality you provide to your customers. For example, we have customers who already know what to buy at a certain time of year because they've seen it from previous years, but perhaps we also include the variable of Covid, war, the Suez Strait being closed, artificial intelligence creates a new scenario that then becomes very important from a predictive standpoint: once, these analyses required a lot of time and money, now we can have much more effective tools. And we also think about machinery that cuts sheet metal: perhaps thanks to artificial intelligence, a tool realizes that when it reaches a certain temperature, after two cycles it will break. Predictive assessment saves you money and time, the areas of application are endless. For example, we're working with a client who created songs for their store using artificial intelligence. The requirement was for royalty-free music. Using dedicated tools, it even identifies the customer base and decides what type of music to produce. The foundation is digitizing the data, and then artificial intelligence helps us use it.

How is the role of people changing and will it change with the advent of AI?

The machine performs actions that are typical of the human mind, which however remains unique in its creative capacity, planning, organization, and development process. Artificial intelligence will never be able to exist alone; it is the human being who must provide data to artificial intelligence. It will never be a substitute, a twenty-fifth hour replacement, an extra hand for all those activities that do not require the added value that the human mind can provide.