The Conversation: Nigel Vaz, CEO, Publicis Sapient

The pace of technological revolution is now exponential instead of linear, Nigel Vaz, CEO of U.S.-based digital transformation company Publicis Sapient, part of the $14.1 billion Publicis Groupe, tells Fortune India. Vaz, helming the company since 2019, says organisations and individuals need to understand that their ability to manage change will determine if they are successful or not. Interview by Urvashi Mishra.

THE TECH OPPORTUNITY

What are the opportunities and challenges presented by the ongoing tech revolution?

We’re about to enter a period where change to humanity is not as great as perhaps when the internet arrived or the world was electrified. But it’s a significant change because we’re moving towards an ability to harness collective wisdom, power, listening ability and skill of the entire world and putting it at the fingertips of every individual. What’s unique is that people are seeing themselves transformed on an individual basis.

Are you seeing this at organisational level, too?

Both pace and scale of change are increasing in organisations. The pace is now exponential. Organisations and people need to recognise that change is the only constant in this new world and how you embrace it to transform yourself will decide whether you’re successful or not.

For example, we’re working with hospitals where a nurse in an ICU, who earlier cared for three-four patients and followed five-six bits of data, has access to predictive models that read current statistics of patients and tell her she may need to call a doctor in, say, half an hour. Radiologists are being aided and in some cases superseded by AI⁽¹⁾ that can look at scans and predict the likelihood of malignant tumours.

Which are the sectors where conversation on technology is far ahead and which are the sectors that have a lot of catching up to do?

In industries like financial services where products are almost entirely digital, you’re starting to see sophistication of models being used to get predictive wealth management recommendations on the basis of huge data. You’re starting to see use of AI in mortgages. One of the challenges, though, is that AI is only as good as the data. So, you’ve got to be thoughtful about the bias and ensure you’re not reinforcing it. You’ve got to make sure you’re cognisant about ethical use of AI. You’ve got to be cognisant about not infringing on intellectual property of others.

Some sectors such as financial services are ahead. We are working with retailers and using AI to route vans on the basis of real-time inputs on traffic and inventory they’re carrying. We’re matching offers and deals with people’s preferences in the travel and hospitality sector. For Marriott, we just launched Homes and Villas, which is their answer to Airbnb and VRBO and matches people with holiday destinations and vacation homes. Every one of these industries has a massive opportunity, while in some cases, a real transformation is needed to unlock the potential of digital.

Not all businesses are able to leverage AI today. At what level do you see these businesses adopting AI? What impact can it have on their revenue compared to the cost?

This is always a challenge for most businesses as we live in an extraordinarily macroeconomically constrained environment. We have high inflation, low growth and in many cases are seeing massive constraints in investments because of the high cost of servicing debt.

But in my experience of talking to the CEOs of the biggest companies in the world in entertainment, telecommunication and financial services, they all understand how transformational AI is for their businesses. Many of these companies were doing small experiments because they couldn’t afford to go full board. But now, every one of them gets what this could mean for their business compared to five years ago when digital would have been priority number four or five for the CEOs.

How can one reduce the bias?

You reinforce the correction of the bias in data sets so that it (the model) corrects itself based on the reinforcement. This is why a lot of AI models use this expression ‘reinforcement learning.’ You are reinforcing what you want but also deleting what you don’t.

What trends in tech space you think will continue for the next couple of years?

We have seen the platform effect in the last couple of years. Lots of things are happening at the same time to give rise to this exponential leap. The first is rise in computing power and fall in computing cost. The second is incredible evolution in nanotechnology, in areas such as introduction of models, which are able to learn at an extraordinarily rapid pace. You’re going to see this intelligence bleed into everything — in devices, in robots.

WHERE INDIA STANDS

What is the global outlook towards India in the digital space in terms of pace of adoption and innovation?

India has huge advantages. I’ll give you three. The first is that it has done an incredible job in establishing public digital infrastructure for transaction and authentication. Most people here have UPI, and that’s because of democratised access to public infrastructure. The second is that India has always had a legacy of outsourcing and IT systems support. I would call it the lower end. But over the last 20 years, even companies like ours that are working on the cutting edge of technology have hired large workforces in India for software⁽²⁾. That is now a huge advantage as you think about building software applications on top of other existing stacks that allow you to do things you weren’t able to do. The technology or IT industry in India will have to evolve from low-cost outsourcing to some of this more sophisticated work⁽³⁾. And the third is India’s forays into hardware. There’s a huge government push for semiconductors. As we look at development of chipsets and hardware, that knowledge is going to become increasingly important as innovation in semiconductor manufacturing starts. Eventually, you’ll start seeing innovation in semiconductor design. India also has a huge advantage of a very young population which is digitally savvy and always looking to add technology in their daily lives.

While GCCs (global capability centres) are expanding in India, what is the scope of work and talent hunt that you expect?

Almost every company we work with has some presence in GCCs in India. The question is, what are they trying? Are they creating nothing but a lower cost destination for executing work? Or are they creating capability for driving innovation? A lot of companies we’ve partnered with for GCCs here are looking to drive innovation. There are others which are all about lowering cost, and those are typically not the folks we work with⁽⁴⁾.

The global CEO of PwC says we are overestimating implications of AI in the short term and underestimating in the long term. What do you make of it?

In the long term, we are beginning this journey of harnessing the collective intelligence of humanity to benefit every individual. That’s incredibly powerful. You’ll see a world where every child can afford a personal tutor. That tutor will not be a person but an AI. That AI will be able to coach and help the child develop. These are the big shifts. Some of these are beginning at a small scale.

When you think about AI, in the long term, this collective intelligence will bleed into inanimate objects. Some of this is happening but over the long term it will not be revolutionary. It’ll just be how we engage, which then basically comes back to this bigger idea, which is the move towards what we’re calling artificial general intelligence. You are seeing technology’s ability to reason, see, hear and do what you can’t, which is an incredible extension of a human being. It’s similar to previous leaps from horses to machines or from walking to horses. Those were colossal leaps and took thousands of years.