Navigating the AI Landscape

Kreecha Puphaiboon, Head of AI/ML Banpu Public Company Limited

Kreecha Puphaiboon, Head of AI/ML Banpu Public Company Limited

Could you provide an overview of your role and responsibilities within the company?

I have a comprehensive list of responsibilities and tasks related to AI Governance and leadership within Banpu. These tasks revolve around ensuring responsible and effective use of AI/ML technologies. Let's break down each points:

a)AI Governance and Best Practices: AI Governance involves establishing policies, guidelines, and frameworks to ensure that AI technologies are used ethically, responsibly, and in alignment with the organization's business strategy. This includes defining how AI should be developed, deployed, and monitored. Best practices encompass a set of guidelines for designing, implementing, and managing AI solutions to achieve optimal results while minimizing risks.

b)Hands-On AI Expertise: as an AI hands-on subject matter expert, I was directly involved in designing and implementing AI solutions. The role will encompass architecting solutions, crafting scalable models, and driving excellence in data management and utilization throughout the organization.

c)Architecting AI/ML Solutions and Infrastructure: this involves creating the blueprint for end-to-end AI solutions, from data collection and preprocessing to model development and deployment. Banpu needs to decide whether the infrastructure will be hosted on the cloud or on-premises, considering scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness.

d) Collaborative Leadership: Collaborative leadership involves working closely with cross-functional teams, leaders, stakeholders, and project managers to ensure that AI projects align with business objectives. Banpu AI Steering Committee provides guidance, direction, and support to various teams working on AI initiatives.

e)Expertise in Statistics and Probability: a solid understanding of statistics and probability is crucial for evaluating data, selecting appropriate algorithms, and building accurate AI models. This knowledge helps in making informed decisions about model performance and optimization.

f)Alignment of Business Goals and AI Solutions: translating business goals into actionable AI solutions requires close collaboration with leadership, board members, stakeholders, and project managers. My job is to ensure that AI projects directly contribute to achieving business objectives with all members of Banpu.

g)Model Training, Re-training, and Optimization: AI models need continuous refinement to adapt to changing environments. AI teams oversee the process of training, re-training, and optimizing models to ensure they remain effective and up to date.

h)Coaching and Mentoring: as you build AI solutions, you'll coach and mentor team members and users. This helps in spreading knowledge and expertise across the organization, facilitating the development of scalable data and machine learning solutions.

i)End-to-End ML Models for Strategic Insights: Building and deploying end-to-end machine learning models will enable the organization to leverage AI for energy predictions, supply chain recommendations, search enhancements, and growth strategies. These models should provide actionable insights to drive decision-making.

j)Product Roadmap and Growth: AI can play a pivotal role in accelerating growth by informing and delivering on ambitious product roadmaps. My role is to help identify opportunities where AI can enhance products and services, leading to better customer experiences and increased market share.

What are some of the key challenges you face?

Fear of job redundancy: AI helps reduce costs and pressure for businesses and can also make some people fear and tasks redundant. Some users may fear of the threat. AI is great assistance at lower-level, repetitive tasks and humans and AI need to work together for maximum productivity. This means putting AI in a supporting role rather than replacing human capabilitiesLack of data availability: In most organizations, data is isolated, siloed, inconsistent and has poor quality. Such data poses a significant challenge for businesses looking to derive value from AI. Businesses need to identify a clear strategy from the beginning so that AI prerequisite data can be retrieved from data sources in an organized and consistent manner.

“The lack of AI skills and the limited availability of technical staff with the required expertise make it clear that Businesses need to consider investing in employee training to effectively implement and operate AI solutions.”

Lack of AI Talent: Organizations seeking to harness the benefits of AI can face a shortage of internal and potential employees with the skills and experience needed to fully realize the potential of artificial intelligence. The lack of AI skills and the limited availability of technical staff with the required expertise make it clear that Businesses need to consider investing in employee training to effectively implement and operate AI solutions.

Cost and Implementation Time: From both a time and economic perspective, the cost of implementing an AI solution is a key factor in deciding to undertake these types of projects. Companies that lack in-house functionality or are not familiar with AI technology. AI experts can address integration challenges to ensure systems/platforms' ease of use and interoperability.

What would you say are some of the futuristic trends that will have an impact in the next 18-24 months?

a. Network on Chip (NoC) where it can help to improve AI/ML for a large-scale data or problem. It can turn internet networks into learning agents.

What advice would you give to young professionals who are interested in pursuing a similar career, and what qualities do you think are essential for success in this field?

a. A bachelor's degree in a relevant subject, such as computer science, computer engineering, or mathematics or statistics is the preference needed for entry into the area of artificial intelligence engineering. This will provide the basic needed to do analytical works of artificial intelligence. A plus would be an open mind to learn new things such as

1) technology which evolves so much;

2) various business problems which we need to solve and etc.