Nick Soggu, Silvertech
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a key theme for Nick Soggu, CEO of Silvertech, a Bedford-based digital experience agency.
Not only does Silvertech expand its business pursuit with the recent purchase of another high-tech company, Paragon, but it also personally expands to Soggu as it has a PhD in AI and Machine Learning.
According to Soggu, AI has widespread results for business and society as a whole.
“The ethical and threat aspects of things are very realistic. These inference models have been created and now they are beginning to be more sophisticated, so they take on an interesting kind of personality,” says Soggu.
“These models have reached that level of thinking and cognitive behavioral ability, where they are beginning to regurgize facts and do more than provide the next best word fit,” he added.
Enhancing AI use was cited as one of the benefits cited in Silvertech's recent Paragon purchase. This brings a broad client list to the table, based in Ohio and deepens Silvertech's portfolio.
As a result of the purchase, Silvertech's personnel have increased to around 150 since around the age of 85, and according to a statement announcing the purchase on July 24th, “it is uniquely positioned to lead innovation and drive transformative growth in the technology sector.”
Soggu said there are two main reasons for purchasing Paragon. One is technology and one is strategic.
The technical part concerns what Soggu called “Digital Experience Products” (CMS products such as WordPress) or what is called a Digital Experience Platform (DXPS).
“Paragon happens to be in a market that offers the same kind of services as us, but we work with a completely different set of these digital experience solutions. So when you combine two companies, what you have is the best in both worlds,” says Soggu.
Strategically, Soggu had clients in certain areas that Silvertech did not do so, Soggu said.
“They work together like different brands that are different from us. In a different industry than us, it's a diversification strategy for client concentration at the end of the day,” Soggu said. “They don't work for many of the banks and credit unions we do, but they have a lot of brands like UGG, a direct type of consumer brand, or a brand of that nature that they serve.
According to Soggu, AI components add horsepower to your organization.
“The future is what we're trying to do together using client-based artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, and we're able to bring horsepower to the table that combines horsepower from an engineering standpoint,” says Soggu.
According to the company, strength combined with the strength of a company offers the following benefits:
- Expanding the offering of AI-powered personalization, predictive analytics and intelligent search.
- Accelerate innovation in machine learning, conversational interfaces and process automation.
- Deepen customer research and provide digital strategies that align with your business strategy.
- We expand our expertise in CMS and DXP platforms with leading technology partnerships and solutions, and are certified and fully qualified at Sitecore, Progress Sitefinity, Kentico, Hubspot, ContentStack, Contentful, Salesforce, Sanity and Big Commerce.
“With this acquisition, Paragon's deep enterprise experience and consulting expertise brings together Silvertech's strengths in digital marketing, media and managed services,” said Jeff McPherson, Silvertech's Chief Growth Officer. “Together, we are expanding our ability to serve a broader market with a powerful mix of strategic insights and technical innovation. We are helping our clients leverage data, personalize experiences, improve decision-making, and drive automation.”
In the increasing use of AI, there are threats and opportunities as Soggu is studying both high-tech executives and doctoral students.
“The world of deepfakes and the world of creating content that looks like human-created content – it's very compelling content – it's a dangerous, slippery slope,” Soggu said. “From an ethical perspective, I think there are certainly many things that have not been decided yet, and we should be concerned about.”
At the same time, according to Soggu, AI can ultimately generate efficiency that will benefit your business.
“In terms of increased efficiency and increased work output, the opportunities are very persuasive,” he said. “Large companies benefit from efficiency and work output of 30% to 50% or more.”
In his work, Soggu said that AI can be applied to several quality assurance tasks.
“We can use AI tools and technology to place websites at a pace and test user-testing can be done much more efficiently and effectively than using five to six people involved in the process,” Soggu said.
“Now that's not to say we don't need those guys anymore,” he added. “These technologies and tools are increasingly able to carry out the basic functions these roles once performed, and their roles are evolving and changing.”
AI is an evolution of business, and according to Soggu, it's pretty much the same as internet marketing evolved from a printed mailer.
“I think humans need to be able to take it, adapt and adjust,” he said. “We need to evolve to use these tools and get the efficiency our customers are looking for to deliver.”
Soggu received his graduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of New Hampshire in 1998. At the time of AOL Dial-Up, Soggu launched its own Internet Service Provider (ISP) that allows people to place websites as an alternative to AOL. Soggu said he has around 100 clients in the Manchester area.
It grew into something bigger when he was approached to provide online credit approval services for cosmetic surgery and orthodontic procedures. He was working digitally at Nashua at the time.
“At that point, Silvertech began to become a little more full-time role for me. I essentially leave digital and have a full-time interest in Silvertech,” he said.
His PhD pursuit in artificial intelligence and machine learning requires many nights and weekend work.
Silvertech moved from the original Manchester site to its new office in Bedford over a year ago as headquarters. With the purchase of Paragon, we have offices in Indianapolis, Indiana and Cleveland, Ohio.
Soggu still exists in Manchester and has other business concerns as CEO of Pannos Marketing, a marketing and communications company specializing in financial institutions.
