EnterpriseAM Forum Playback

Good morning wonderful people, and welcome to the fifth installment of EnterpriseAM Forum Playback, the AI edition. This week, we’re asking: What does AI mean for your company? It’s a loaded question. After a month that cybersecurity professionals have dubbed “Black October,” every business leader, CTO, and government official on the planet is reminded that as new opportunities arise so will the risks.

October was supposed to be Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It delivered rather more awareness than anyone had bargained for. A wave of cyberattacks and security disclosures put businesses on alert around the world. AI is helping uncover vulnerabilities, but it is also giving attackers new ways to exploit them — and less time for businesses to respond.

That gives one part of the Forum conversation that we are recapping today particular resonance. On stage in the companies panel, Qalaa Holdings founder and Chairman Ahmed Heikal singled out cybersecurity as the AI application giving him the greatest concern. For a business running industrial assets, the consequences of getting security wrong can quickly reach the bottom line. So can the benefits of getting AI right: Heikal explained how predictive maintenance could help avoid refinery shutdowns that cost millions of dollars in forgone profit.

The opportunity goes well beyond keeping the lights on. Microsoft’s Mirna Arif and Capgemini Egypt’s Hossam Seifeldin explored how companies are moving from using AI to save time to changing how their businesses operate. From agents supporting customer service to systems helping optimize energy consumption, the applications are becoming more concrete. So are the questions for management: Is your data ready? Who decides what an agent can access? And which responsibilities should remain firmly with people?

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE- What could tokenization mean for an Egyptian money market fund? In our sideline interview, Granite Financial Holding CEO Hisham Akram discusses the tokenization of the company’s fund and its participation in the FRA’s sandbox. It’s another look at how fintechs are testing new technology and how the regulatory framework is developing alongside that experimentation.

ARE YOU MORE OF A LISTENER? Forum Playback is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Anghami. Listen to the full panel straight in your feed by following EnterpriseAM Egypt wherever you get your podcasts.