AI Journey 2024: plans for new global Artificial Intelligence Alliance announced

PJSC Sberbank, a Russian majority state-owned financial institution, hosted the 2024 edition of AI Journey from December 11 to 13 in Moscow. 

This annual conference brings together Russian and international experts, including representatives from the business community and science, technology and education sectors, to discuss trending topics related to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

This year, the conference’s geographical coverage widened to include participants from China, India, the UAE, SA, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran and other countries. The three-day programme centred around exploring AI’s role in industry and business, science and society.

‘AI for Humans’

An important focus of the conference was on the practical application of AI to boost consumer demand and profitability, and to promote the sustainable growth of businesses for the benefit of all spheres of public life.

For its part, Russia attaches huge importance to the development of AI technologies to take up a leading position in the global industry.

However, the conference’s organisers emphasised that AI was not only contributing to economic development, but also performing a vital role in uniting humanity to tackle shared challenges.

This was the subject of a panel discussion titled ‘AI for Humans: Helping People. Uniting Countries’, which featured Russian President Vladimir Putin and was moderated by Sberbank CEO and executive board chair Herman Gref.

Gref said AI technologies could be applied for the efficient collection of feedback, which was indispensable both for business and for addressing issues of national importance.

For instance, Russian hosts an annual televised call-in show that gives citizens a direct line to Putin, providing them with the opportunity to have their questions answered by the president. This year, for the first time, the country will use Sberbank’s large language model GigaChat — a rival to ChatGPT — to more precisely and efficiently analyse the questions received from the public objectively highlighting the pressing issues they are most concerned about.

During his keynote talk titled ‘AI Assists’, Andrey Belevtsev, head of Sberbank's technological development department, spoke about the company’s plans to develop existing tech services and launch new ones.

In addition, conference attendees heard how artificial intelligence was becoming a familiar and reliable assistant to human beings, with several keynote speakers agreeing that AI was changing everyday life for people all around the world.   

Integrating AI into public life

As we approach the end of 2024, AI is no longer just about replacing a secretary or a call centre. Generative AI models can now propose effective solutions for businesses, urban development, public administration, and the medical and other sectors.

For example, AI can improve the quality of business services and medical treatment, and accelerate the distribution of social benefits from the state. And crucially, it can take part in creating new medicines — in other words, it could literally help save people from extremely serious diseases.

The conference’s keynote speakers talked about how AI was being integrated into public life in their respective countries.

Dr Song Haitao, vice president of the Shanghai Institute of AI, described how AI was improving the Chinese government’s operations by automating data management, providing decision support and optimising resource allocation and budgets. 

This same practice is being applied in Russia, where the finance ministry is using AI in the process of compiling the national budget.

Experts from Dubai shared that crime had fallen by 25% in some districts thanks to the help provided to the police and the authorities by Smart City solutions.

And according to Janet Sawari, founder of TAIR Labs, SA’s experience of using AI is broad — extending from education and healthcare to agriculture. Precise data analysis, which is becoming possible thanks to the implementation of AI, is being employed in commerce to study consumer demand and develop entrepreneurial strategies, for example.

Representatives from other tech companies gave detailed reports on solutions for the business and IT sectors. The conference also included an AI Leaders Award Ceremony honouring outstanding contributions to the advancement of AI.

The creation of a new AI Alliance

AI Journey is not only about what is happening now — it’s about laying down tracks for the future. This year, for example, brought the announcement of plans to create a new AI Alliance, bringing together participants from 18 countries, including the Brics group.

The goal is to create a diversified global platform for co-operation on equal terms. Gref reiterated that creating this alliance could take collaboration between all parties to a new level, thereby facilitating the open and transparent development of AI technologies that would be useful for everyone.

The conference was the culmination of a series of events held throughout the year, all linked by one overarching idea — the AI journey is always a path towards people.

Visit the AI Journey website or the AI Journey YouTube channel to watch talks by this year’s keynote speakers.

This article was sponsored by Sberbank.