"We’re moving away from the franken-prompt": Slalom, Mantel Group & Thoughtworks on how the GenAI story is playing out

The “tug of war between FUD and FOMO” in Australian businesses over generative AI has been giving way to reality.

Over the past year-and-a-half, Australian organisations have initiated thousands of GenAI workshops, technical development programs, pilot programs and software deployments.

Some of those activities have fizzled, others have become works-in-progress and successful deployments.

Among those with a front row seat to the Gen AI story are Amazon Web Services (AWS) partners Mantel Group, Slalom and Thoughtworks. Together, the three firms work have hundreds of AWS customers around the world.

CRN Australia spoke with the three firms in Sydney at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Software Companies AI Day in Sydney in late June, where we asked them how this story was playing out so far from their perspectives.

Kathryn Collier, Mantel Group

Kathryn Collier, Head of AI & ML Engineering, Mantel Group

CRN Australia: Have you moved many customers’ GenAI projects beyond proof of concept?

Mantel Group has seen a rapid acceleration in our Gen AI service offerings. In the past six months alone we’ve initiated a new Gen AI project for a customer every two weeks, three times as many as in the prior six months.

We are delivering a number of Gen AI initiatives into production for clients, the majority tend to be internal facing applications with a focus on operational efficiency - for example in the call centre to synthesise a lot of information quickly for call centre agents, or smart automated document processing.

CRN Australia: In your experience, are businesses wanting to wield AI responsibly?

Absolutely. Almost every client wants to ensure responsible AI practices.  Where it breaks down in reality, is navigating the trade off against the time pressure to get results quickly in AI. Well-intentioned technical practitioners need business-wide buy-in to lay the foundations for responsible AI. It requires a holistic approach involving bias mitigation, security practices, explainability tools, responsible coding, and thorough documentation working together.

It's encouraging that we’re having these conversations now. Three years ago this conversation was limited to data scientists and PhD students, and the conversation with clients was more ‘Why am I not seeing the ROI from my data science team?’ Now it’s "How can we get Gen AI initiatives into production responsibly?”.

CRN Australia: Has there been a good response to these conversations about responsible AI?

Yes. Among our biggest clients it's a long game. There’s a business wide education required with roles beyond the tech team. It can't just be sitting on the shoulders of technical practitioners. I've seen a massive uptick in that understanding. The c-suite and board are no longer passive bystanders of this AI thing squirrelled away in a corner, they absolutely have to have some understanding of what AI is now. It’s put a big magnifying glass on the importance of AI, and importance of responsible AI. Leaders in AI five to ten years from now will be those that are focusing on a business wide approach to responsible practices and investing in their data now.

CRN Australia: How big is the team you work in?

Mantel Group has a core AI and ML engineering team of about 50, up from about a dozen three-and-a-half years ago when I joined, and we continue to grow.

Click below to read the rest of this story.