Developing regions like ASEAN are seeing high rates of technology adoption due to digital connectivity and a young population. ASEAN is currently the world's fifth largest economy and is projected to leap to fourth place by 2030. Over the next decade, ASEAN is expected to emerge as one of the fastest growing regions in the global economy and dominate the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover, around 60% of ASEAN's total population is currently under the age of 35.
Dr Karin Teo, Chief Strategy Officer at Bond Holdings |
For Vietnam, the potential is immense. With an internet connectivity rate of nearly 80% and growing, Vietnam is poised to expand, and with technologies such as digitalization and AI, even more can be achieved.
As technology continues to evolve, our businesses continue to innovate. AI can be used to improve many aspects of business, from internal processes to external engagements. In business processes, AI enables the automation of repetitive tasks in areas such as accounting, IT operations, human resources, supply chain and logistics, sales and marketing, etc. AI can speed up, simplify, and redefine traditional processes to make them seamless and effective.
AI-assisted tools are highly effective in sales and marketing as they can provide targeted and intelligent marketing based on data analysis. This allows businesses to gain a deeper understanding of their customers' preferences, needs, and wants. To become powerful and mature, AI tools require the necessary datasets and training time.
Industries that will benefit greatly from AI and data analytics are cybersecurity, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and education.
As nations and economies move towards digitalisation to increase efficiency and improve quality of life, cybersecurity becomes a pillar to secure the domain. The introduction and application of AI and data analytics in cybersecurity provides significant advantages in detecting threats, analyzing attacks, mitigating damage by automating incident response and understanding the effectiveness of security controls.
In financial services, AI provides insights and intelligence for financial data analysis, electronic verification processes, financial performance measurement, fraud detection and prevention, and personalized banking and financial services. In a growing economy like Vietnam, the use of AI in the financial sector will be a key differentiator.
Manufacturing is another sector that can create synergy with AI. Its adoption starts from the conceptualization and design stage, as AI can analyze market trends, study product research and market feedback to provide the information and ideas needed to create innovative designs. AI and data analytics can help manufacturers run their supply chains autonomously with little to no human oversight. By identifying patterns in production data, AI and data analytics can help predictively and proactively perform maintenance and automate quality checks.
AI is revolutionizing and reinvigorating healthcare. AI can make research and development for new drug discovery more cost- and time-efficient, predict side effects, and identify candidates for clinical trials. Medical diagnostics is another compelling AI healthcare application, where diseases can be predicted and diagnosed more quickly and accurately. AI-assisted surgery using robots is more accurate, resulting in fewer complications and faster recovery times.
In the education sector, AI can be leveraged to augment the role of teachers by supporting and automating their daily tasks and activities. AI and data analytics are expected to revolutionize student-centric assessment and provide valuable insights to help students learn and excel with personalized learning content and experiences.
The transformative potential of AI is enormous and undeniable, but to harness its power, we need to embrace the technology with governance and knowledge of moral, legal and societal dimensions.
To harness the magic of AI, we need to ethically understand its complexities, understand the power of data analytics, and protect user privacy and security.
Guidelines and governance frameworks have been developed, such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and the EU's Ethical Guidelines for Trustworthy AI. ASEAN also published a guide on AI governance and ethics this year.
As AI technologies shape our future, markets around the world, including the US, EU, China, Canada and Australia, are strengthening legal frameworks and AI regulations that prioritize ethical applications and societal benefit.
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