“The great thing for decision intelligence is that it empowers everyday business people to just be superhuman, basically.”

 

Having data and artificial intelligence by themselves is not the answer to business success. Instead, it is about being able to use AI insights to make the correct decisions. Richard Potter, CEO of Peak, describes a customized yet systematic process where AI can create predictive models to inform supply chain determinations. 

Key Insights

 

Customized Yet Systemized (05:55)

Potter breaks down how Peak’s platform allows AI to be tailored to the needs of each customer but provides a systematic baseline so that customized AI applications can be easily built. Across industries, a model that provides a foundation for specific applications to be created on top of it often leads to increased efficiency.

Shaking Things Up With Successful Outcomes (09:22)

Despite best intentions, any business can get stuck in more of a rigid mindset. Without meaning to, companies can offer up a mantra regarding openness to innovation but be caught in a mediocre pattern. Whether inside one’s own business or working with a customer, the paramount concern is developing a strategy to create constructive change.

“But what you’ve got to do, I think is going on this journey with companies, and the way we try to work with our customers is help them pick off the quick wins. What are the things that is going to get a very quick return on investment and prove a concept internally that’s going to galvanize a new way of thinking? Because I think that’s actually the biggest barrier here. Companies have to almost relearn how to run their business in the most optimized way because this technology allows them to think differently and to operate differently.” 

AI Upleveling Supply Chain Management (02:30)

Supply chains have certainly been stretched recently and, in certain cases, some have been, perhaps, temporarily broken. Managing supply chains efficiently and economically is a huge priority for businesses with tangible products. Any technology or insight that can help in this regard is a tremendous asset. Potter discusses the benefit of using AI to help oversee supply chains.  

“… One of the commonalities across all of our customers and all of the applications that we run on the Peak platform is that our customers have a lot of data. High, transactional frequency businesses — they typically have a physical product that becomes their value chain. If you think about it, a lot of those businesses have a product that they’re essentially generating demand for [and] they’re then managing that demand and fulfilling that demand with inventory and product, and then they’re running a supply chain. So that entire value chain can be optimized using AI. And in doing that, you’re going to uplift your growth. You’re going to uplift your profit margins.” 

Considering the Impact AI Can Have On Predicting Trends and On Culture (21:21) 

 

Sometimes the way AI is talked about is in a futuristic sense in terms of what it may be able to accomplish down the line. Potter chats about the current possibility for AI to predict some trends but also that human creativity is still a factor in generating must-have products. He also addresses the impact AI is already potentially having across cultures worldwide. Vision is not always about projecting out into the future; sometimes, it’s about assessing reality with clear eyes.

“So those sort of vertical spikes of innovation and new product ideas, I think the creatives are the best place for those. Sort of horizontal, iterative kind of derivative products, ‘Yeah, maybe.’ And I think actually… that’s a thread that people are pulling out. This sort of global homogenization of culture driven by algorithms across big tech platforms, social media and stuff, that’s a thing, right? Go around global cities and they can kind of look and feel the same because people’s tastes are getting equalized a little bit… Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, you can kind of see that. Those sort of iterative, derivative ideas and tastes — I think you’re seeing AI play out in the real world there.” 

About the Guest:

“Peak helps the world’s smartest companies put the power of AI at the centre of all commercial decision making, with Decision Intelligence, a brand new category of AI technology. It unlocks the power of a business’s most valuable asset, its data, by helping people make decisions over complex information faster, more consistently, more accurately than ever before.

I founded Peak alongside David Leitch and Atul Sharma and have the privilege to be CEO of our amazing company. We started the business with a shared belief that we could help other businesses be better using data and AI. We also started the business to build a company that everyone loved being part of – as team members, customers or partners. We’re working hard every day to grow Peak into the leading Decision Intelligence company globally, and the best company in the world to work at.

We’re always on the lookout for great talent, too. So if you’d like to find out more about joining the Peak team drop us a line at jobs@peak.ai.”

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