GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­es across T&T and the wider Caribbean must em­brace ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and tech­no­log­i­cal change if they want to re­main com­pet­i­tive in the years ahead, ac­cord­ing to Southex CEO George Singh.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of the 36th SouthEx In­ter­na­tion­al Ex­po, Singh said this year's theme, "CHAT-GPT: Growth Po­ten­tial and Trans­for­ma­tion," re­flects the need for busi­ness­es to adapt to a rapid­ly chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment dri­ven by tech­nol­o­gy.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns that the an­nu­al ex­po is be­com­ing over­ly fo­cused on tech­nol­o­gy, Singh stressed that the theme was in­tend­ed to pro­voke dis­cus­sion rather than re­de­fine the event.

"While 99 per cent of the com­pa­nies here to­day may not be tech com­pa­nies by de­f­i­n­i­tion, every sin­gle one of us is dri­ven by tech­nol­o­gy," he said.

He warned that ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence is ad­vanc­ing at a pace many busi­ness­es may un­der­es­ti­mate not­ing, "If lo­cal and re­gion­al busi­ness­es are not pay­ing close at­ten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in par­tic­u­lar, they risk be­com­ing ob­so­lete."

Singh added that in­dus­try lead­ers project AI could "rev­o­lu­tionise or elim­i­nate up to 75 per cent of tra­di­tion­al busi­ness prac­tices with­in the next four to five years."

De­scrib­ing AI as an op­por­tu­ni­ty rather than a threat, Singh said the tech­nol­o­gy is "an equalis­er for small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es, a dri­ver of ef­fi­cien­cy for lo­gis­tics and re­tail, and an en­gine for cre­ative in­dus­tries."

He said the ex­po's theme serves as a roadmap for busi­ness­es, call­ing on them to "adopt new tools, re­think stan­dard pro­ce­dures, and trans­form how we de­liv­er val­ue to our cus­tomers."

Singh al­so praised ex­hibitors for demon­strat­ing re­silience and in­no­va­tion, not­ing that "every en­tre­pre­neur here to­day has cho­sen to adapt rather than hes­i­tate, to in­no­vate rather than stag­nate."

De­clar­ing the ex­po of­fi­cial­ly open, he urged busi­ness­es to em­brace change. "Let us not fear the speed of change. In­stead, let us har­ness it to build stronger busi­ness­es, more sus­tain­able in­dus­tries, and a re­silient econ­o­my."

Al­so ad­dress­ing the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Trade Min­istry Neville Alexan­der said the ex­po's fo­cus on in­no­va­tion comes at a crit­i­cal time as dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies re­shape glob­al com­merce.

"This year's theme, Let's CHAT-GPT, and the GPT here is Glob­al Po­ten­tial Trans­for­ma­tion, where in­no­va­tion dri­ves the fu­ture, is a par­tic­u­lar­ly time­ly one," Alexan­der said adding, "Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion are, as we speak, chang­ing how we do busi­ness, how con­sumers find and pur­chase prod­ucts, how com­pa­nies man­age their op­er­a­tions and how busi­ness­es ac­cess mar­kets."

He said T&T's busi­ness­es now have un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties to reach cus­tomers be­yond the do­mes­tic mar­ket.

"Through e-com­merce, dig­i­tal plat­forms and oth­er tech­nolo­gies, our en­tre­pre­neurs can over­come tra­di­tion­al ge­o­graph­ic bar­ri­ers and com­pete in mar­kets that may once have ap­peared be­yond their reach,"he added.

Alexan­der urged that the pri­or­i­ty now is en­sur­ing busi­ness­es are equipped to take ad­van­tage of these op­por­tu­ni­ties.