VIETNAM, Sept. 24 – HÀ NỘI – Many firms have started using artificial intelligence (AI), and the technology has allowed them to outperform their competitors, according to insiders.
Phạm Quang Vinh, head of Enterprise Solutions Division, Viettel Cyberspace Centre, pointed to a June Accenture report to show that 60 percent of finance and banking companies are embracing AI and the technology has brought them 50 percent more revenue than theirs own rivals.
“AI is becoming an official means of customer-firm interaction, especially for banks,” he said.
The head of the department also said that 42 percent of specialists working in companies are unaware of the risk their companies would fall behind if they don’t embrace AI. In fact, the revenues of AI-enabled finance and banking companies have steadily increased since 2019.
“The value of AI would double in the next three years. It’s time for companies to initiate their own data exploration,” he added.
He underlined six steps for companies to integrate AI into their operations, which include deploying AI applications and developing AI tests. He also mentioned the two most valuable AI use cases, namely text digitization and virtual assistants.
Đặng Hoàng Vũ, director of the AI for Business Growth Division, MoMo, noted that AI has helped companies increase click-through rates by 16 percent and reduce the time between a search and a click by 7 percent.
AI has also increased the volume of services users access through screens by 15 percent and advertising requests by 6 percent. In the financial and banking sectors, companies use AI primarily for credit scoring, approval processing and identifying customer needs.
Remarkably, the AI-powered rapid loan approval processing takes just three minutes with an approval rate of 60 percent, which is about one-sixth the time it takes to approve other types of loans and one-and-a-half times higher than their approval rates.
In the first six months of 2022, MoMo’s quick loans grew 260 percent and postpaid wallets grew 42 percent. The risks associated with the former fell by 15 percent and with the latter by 64 percent.
Đỗ Mạnh Cường, deputy secretary-general of the Vietnam Automation Association, emphasized digital enterprises and smart factories as a prerequisite for a digital economy.
He said Việt Nam has reached the third level of automation, which involves integrating digital technologies into the operations of enterprises, including data-driven operations and AI-based intelligent automation.
Of the seven levels of automation, most Vietnamese companies stay between the third and fifth levels. This means that these companies are partially automated and AI integration will not be an easy task for them.
He also said that big data and AI will be the optimal tools for running factories in the future and the digital transition will help companies optimize costs and reduce emissions.
Vũ Hồng Chiên, Director of FPT Software’s Quy Nhon AI Research and Application Center, highlighted several factors companies should consider when integrating AI into their factories.
Factors include profitability, productivity, factories’ readiness for AI, and the compatibility of the technology with their functions.
He also said digital enterprises and smart factories are inevitable, and the latter would rely on data and cloud computing to run their operations.
Nguyễn Quân, President of the Vietnam Automation Association, called for a national database law to provide the legal basis for the sector. He also called for favorable policies to make it easier for businesses to access support packages.
Vietnam Artificial Intelligence Day, an annual event promoting the growth of the AI ecosystem in Việt Nam, opened on Friday.
Speaking at the event, Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam stressed the need to understand AI, spread it and use the idea not only in the field of information technology but also in other fields.
He also said Việt Nam has a long way to go as the AI workforce in the country is still insufficient and insufficient to meet the demand from tech companies. — VNS
