Unsurprisingly, discussions on artificial intelligence have been among the most heated topics at this year's Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China. On the second day of the 2024 Summer Davos Forum, participants from various industries and academia gathered at the sub-forum titled "AI Breaking New Ground - What's Next for Industry" to exchange perspectives on the impacts AI has brought or will bring to human society across all walks of life.

Jay Lee, director of the Industrial AI Center at the University of Maryland, pointed out that the two most basic and beneficial industries for AI's application lie in manufacturing and energy. As quoted by a panelist during this sub-forum, according to McKinsey's report on AI's impact on manufacturing published this April, generative AI is expected to add between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion in annual value to the global economy. The data below show that AI is already significantly impacting processes across the entire value chain in the manufacturing sector.

Education was one of the earliest application areas of AI. Van Dinh Hong Vu, CEO of ELSA, a U.S. based educational language technology company, shared at the sub-forum that AI-powered education has seen its biggest improvement in hyper-personalized learning. With an AI tutor, every individual can learn in a personalized style and path, from K-12 to higher education and beyond. Especially with the rapid development of generative AI, a conversational learning approach can support learners 24/7, liberating teachers from low-level repetitive tasks.

However, when applying AI for content generation in education, it is crucial that learners are prevented from encountering AI hallucinations and biases that may occur when left unchecked.

For those who fear being replaced by the ever-widening diversity of AI applications, experts at the sub-forum offered some reassurance. Vincent Henry Iswaratioso from the Indonesian company DANA mentioned that in their use of AI agents in financial services, they are not dehumanizing the companies or reducing human participation in work. Instead, they are focusing on helping their staff leverage AI to become more productive. Currently, about 350 human agents manage to handle 200-250 thousand contacts daily, ultimately reducing wait times and ensuring users while ensuring high-quality service provision.