A day at the Devon AI summit

The team spent Thursday 5 November at the Devon AI Summit at Sandy Park, now in its second year. The summit set out to cut through the hype around artificial intelligence and look at how organisations are using it now, what they are learning along the way and the practical choices that come with adopting it.

What was on the programme

The programme opened with a session on AI and the future of how organisations do business, with speakers from the University of Exeter and Amazon Web Services. A second session looked at organisations putting AI into practice, with speakers from Devon County Council, the law firm Stephens Scown, Magnetic AI and the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Workshops hosted by the University of Exeter, Amazon Web Services and South West AI Solutions worked through the questions organisations face when they start using AI. Between sessions there was time to talk with other businesses and researchers about what is working for them and what is not.

A framework worth bringing home

One idea we came away with was the generative AI maturity model that Amazon Web Services has published as part of its prescriptive guidance. It is written for organisations whose AI pilots never make it into everyday use. The model sets out four stages (Envision, Experiment, Launch and Scale) and looks at each one across business, people, governance, platform, security and operations. An organisation can sit at different stages in different areas, which matches what we heard from speakers through the day.

The people and governance parts were the most useful for a team our size. At the early stages that means training and knowledge sharing, named AI champions, written guidelines for responsible use, clear rules on what data can go into AI tools and a risk check before any new use. None of it needs a large budget. It needs someone to own it.

What we are taking back

We went along because AI is part of how our own work gets done and part of the work we do for clients, from AI search visibility to business process automation. Priority Pixels uses AI workflows across search, paid media and web projects. Every deliverable is reviewed and edited by a named member of the team before it reaches a client.

Off the back of the day we are bringing back a standalone AI policy with a named owner and a review date. It will set out what data never goes into AI tools, which providers we use and whether they train on our data. Alongside it we are building an approved list of AI tools for our Security Pack, with structured training for the team and AI champions who keep our workflows up to date.

A day like this is a chance to hear how other organisations are getting on with AI and to bring what we learn back into our own workflows and the advice we give clients.