Enterprise Use Cases for GenAI are Becoming More Tangible
Adobe's President of EMEA says new regional headquarters in Riyadh will help it serve the growing demand for digital customer experiences and creative solutions in the region.
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Generative AI (GenAI) captures the collective imagination and sparks discussion and debate about its applications and impacts.
What is undebatable is that there are real, powerful GenAI applications for digital customer experience, and, secondly, many businesses are desperate for ways to connect with their customers to stay relevant, and the rapid adoption of this new tool stems from GenAI FOMO (fear of missing out).
“Last year, many CEOs and leaders were torn between the FOMO on the one hand and the fear of getting in on the other,” says Luc Dammann, President, Adobe EMEA at Adobe Systems. “In the first two months of 2024, as enterprise use cases for GenAI become more tangible, FOMO is becoming the driver of many organisations’ plans to adopt GenAI.”
Although businesses struggle to convert hype into reality, this is the year to turn GenAI’s promise into tangible business success and scale beyond pilots. Across the Middle East region, many pioneering projects are centred around delivering creative, personalised experiences for customers using the latest technology, and there is huge potential for companies to uncover the new business models and efficiencies that GenAI enables, adds Dammann.
“Every customer I speak to across every industry in the Middle East and the EMEA region wants to know how AI and generative AI can accelerate their growth, provide greater automation, increase productivity, and drive personalisation.”
With each great leap forward in ingenuity, so too comes a great leap forward in potential for harm – and GenAI is no exception.
At this seminal moment, not just for digital customer experience, how can we “get GenAI right?”
The key lies in a partnership between policymakers, tech companies, and the wider community to ensure responsible and ethical development, deployment, and use.
“When it comes to AI, it’s even more important to balance innovation with responsibility,” says Dammann.
For over a decade, Adobe has been developing AI, its Content Authenticity Initiative, and the development of tools like Content Credentials, he adds, acts as a digital “nutrition label” for content. It helps creators and consumers track the origins and alterations of AI-generated content to help address the problem of misinformation while enabling creators to get credit for their work.
Adobe has been helping develop tools that define one of the most pivotal times in the history of creativity. “Our technology makes it easier than ever to turn a vision into reality,” says Dammann, citing Adobe Creative Cloud, GenAI applications like Adobe Firefly and Adobe Express, and its Creative, Document, and Experience Cloud applications for enterprises.
“Customer experience is the new competitive differentiator for brands, and our technology helps enterprises not just meet their customers’ heightened expectations for personalised digital experiences but exceed them to build long-term trusted relationships that add value,” he adds.
EXPANSION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Firefly, launched a year ago, with text-to-image and text effects capabilities, has already surpassed 4.5 billion image generations, making it the most popular AI image generation model designed for commercial use.
“We featured Firefly’s text-to-image capabilities prominently as part of our presence at LEAP, and the response from attendees was tremendous,” Dammann says.
“We’re excited to see how individuals, students, creative professionals, small-business owners, and enterprises across the Middle East will use Firefly to create amazing content.”
Adobe’s customers in the Middle East include Alshaya, Etihad, Qatar Tourism, Saudi Tourist Authority, and stc, and most recently, Riyadh Air.
As part of its regional expansion, Adobe announced plans to establish a new regional headquarters in Riyadh, having had its license approved by the Saudi Ministry of Investment. “We expect to open in early 2025,” he says.
“We have been active in the region with customers across the public and private sector, and our new regional headquarters will enable us to better serve the ever-growing demand for digital customer experiences and creative solutions across the Middle East.”
The Middle East economy is undergoing a significant transformation driven by digitalization, economic diversification, and the adoption of emerging technologies. Dammann says, “The speed and scale of development in the region, fused with the ambition of the organizations here to deliver incredible digital experiences, is exciting.”
The original story appeared in Fast Company Middle East on 8 March 2024.
