AI Tribes

“It’s going to improve life for lots of people … I think it’s a really exciting time” – Stephen Redmond of BearingPoint on how AI augments business processes

By David Monaghan
11 April 2024
Pictured: Stephen Redmond, Director, Head of Data Analytics and AI at BearingPoint


Stephen Redmond recently spoke at AI Tribes on the subject of ‘AI’s Next Leap for Enterprise.’ He and an expert panel explored how emerging AI technologies are being integrated into established businesses.

In between sessions, and in amongst the rabble and throng of tech enthusiasts, I spoke to Redmond, who acts as Director, Head of Data Analytics and AI at BearingPoint, a management and technology firm, about how the company uses AI on a day-to-day basis.

It is used “in several different places,” he tells me.

“Obviously, BearingPoint is a professional services firm, so our focus is using AI to help our customers solve their business problems.”

Is it used internally? “We are also applying it to some of our own internal processes. [It] helps us, for example, [match] up work that we have to do with the people who have to do it, which is traditionally a laborious task.”

Redmond uses AI daily in his work, particularly Microsoft Copilot, a chatbot based on large language models. “I always tell people that I don’t program in Python anymore. I programme in PowerPoint, you know? So Microsoft Copilot is my best friend. I have to generate a lot of content for people, and it just really, really helps me with my work.”

“The Copilots will be everywhere,” he continues. “So every productivity application that people use will have some kind of Copilot or assistant or sensei in it, to help people out and to be aware of the context that you’re working in at the moment and be able to quickly help you.”

We will also have AI in our pockets on our phones, Redmond says. “I have all these apps on my phone that I need to use, and now I’ll have an assistant who will do that for me, you know? So it’s really exciting from that point of view – the productivity improvements for people.

“It’s going to make a lot of people a lot of money, it’s going to improve life for me, and it’s going to improve life for lots of people working. I think it’s a really exciting time.”

BearingPoint is a proud early adopter of AI, with it seeing use across the company’s branches in Europe and around the world, Redmond tells me.

Redmond is happy to partake in AI Tribes to share what BearingPoint is doing, and to ‘demystify’ AI. “There’s a nervousness, I think, about it. People hear about the hallucinations and things like that, but there’s lots of ways of working around that and making sure you don’t put a chatbot out there that writes bad things about your company.”

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