IBM uses about sixty AI models internally, all visible on a single observability layer.
“I can go onto my observability layer and I can see the sixty models that we're currently using across IBM, sixty models.”
Person
Andy Baldwin
1 episodes · 20 quoted claims
Baldwin says he can restrict access to specific models in his consulting business through the observability layer.
“I can dial down access to one of the models if I decide.”
At his previous organization, Baldwin's team deployed about 150,000 Copilot licenses to boost personal productivity.
“we deployed at scale, you know, o 150,000 co pilot licenses um, across the organization to really boost personal productivity.”
At his former firm, a company-wide chat deployment reached $25 million in compute cost within six months.
“Actually, within six months, we were running at 25 million, 25 million dollar compute cost within.”
The deployment was re-architected, reducing its cost to about $2 million.
“we actually re-architected that and brought the cost down to around 2 million.”
His former firm used the OpenAI version offered through Microsoft instead of allowing ChatGPT directly.
“we couldn't let people use Chat G P T, so we used the open A I version of it through Microsoft”
IBM calls its practice of deploying AI at scale across its own organization 'client zero'.
“We call it client zero.”
IBM announced Lightwell, a clearing house for patching open-source software vulnerabilities.
“the announcement we made around Lightwell, which is really around us providing a clearing house for patching of, um, you know, open source.”
Outside IT, finance, HR and procurement are the functions where IBM does the most AI work, per Baldwin.
“finance, H R and procurement are the three functions that we're doing most. W outside of I T, we're doing most work on from an IBM point of view.”
Baldwin says consulting advice work that took twelve weeks can now be done in two to three weeks.
“taking a twelve week piece of work, you can probably do that now, including the client engagement piece and the client stakeholder management, you know, in two to three weeks rather than twelve weeks.”
Baldwin says IBM sees 20 to 40 percent productivity gains in large platform implementations such as SAP and Oracle.
“we're getting productivity gains of twenty, thirty, 40% in those types of, uh, programs and and projects.”
IBM deployed an in-house coding tool called Bob to its more than 300,000 employees.
“we've deployed something called Bob, which is our in hou, our our in house, you know, co coding platform model to all of our, you know, sort of 300,000 plus people.”
Baldwin says IBM, along with Google, is among the leading organizations researching quantum computing.
“we're along with, I think, Google, we're probably one of the leading organizations researching quantum in IBM.”
Baldwin says IBM announced plans to be among the first quantum chip manufacturers, building a site in the United States.
“we're going to be one of the first, um, quantum chip manufacturers in the world. We're building a a a site in the United States.”
Baldwin says recently announced frontier models, including Mythos, raised board-level concern about cybersecurity.
“I think what's happened with what's with Mythos and a couple of the models that have been announced very recently.”
IBM identified 15,000 to 20,000 employees whose skills face declining client demand and is giving them retraining plans.
“We've identified fifteen, 20,000 people from a skills point of view, that we look at these skills and we say these skills are in declining demand from clients.”
Baldwin describes IBM as an organization of about 300,000 people and an $80 billion business.
“I say this as an organization with, you know, 300,000 people, 80 billion business.”
Baldwin says he was heavily involved in blockchain, which he considers to have had a much narrower set of use cases than generative AI.
“I was heavily involved in blockchain when blockchain came out. Blockchain was a great technology, but it had a a very spe narrow set of use cases.”
Baldwin says AI can answer tax questions but cannot provide regulatory sign-off, unlike human advisers.
“Will the tool be able to sign a confirmation from a regulatory point of view that it did do that? No, it won't.”
Baldwin cites Copilot and IBM's Watson Orchestrate as tools that provide new user experiences while still accessing legacy source systems.
“you're seeing the power of tools, you know, of like Watson Orchestrate, in that you can have a different user experience, but still access the source system.”