Mária Bieliková from KInIT: How to Innovate with AI in a Company
Professor Mária Bieliková, founder and director of the research institute KInIT, revealed to us a pragmatic guide for managers, leaders, and business owners on how to create a lasting competitive advantage from AI and not go crazy from the pace of innovations.
Everyone is talking today about what artificial intelligence can do. However, in practice, a fundamental question arises: how many companies really use technology to generate profit and how many are just playing with it? The transition from media hype to real business impact requires a clear system and a change in mindset.
How to Start with AI (and Not Go Crazy)
- Don't Panic: The biggest mistake when adopting technologies is the panic that you might miss something. The exponential world brings new models every week. The most important thing is to keep a cool head.
- Discard Tools, Solve Real Problems: Don't buy applications and software just because they "look good" in a presentation. Open up your company processes and ask:
"What do we do manually?"
"Where do we waste time?"
"What exactly do we want to streamline?" - Artificial intelligence should be the answer to a specific company problem, not a toy without a goal.
- Find an Internal "Fan" in the Company: You don't need to immediately hire an expensive specialist. It's enough to have someone on the team who enjoys technology and is given the space to follow trends. In the near future, such a connecting link between business and development will be a necessity in every organization.
Change Your Approach to Innovation: Why You Need a Venture Mindset
- Redefine Failure: If you want to innovate, you must adopt the mindset of a venture investor. Failure in innovation doesn't mean investing capital in a project that doesn't succeed. The real failure is if a great idea lies at your feet and you ignore it out of fear of making a mistake.
- Failure is Your Friend: Failures and dead ends are a natural part of development. Adopt an agile approach: in business, you either win or learn. Defeat doesn't exist.
- Mix Skills in the Team: If research or development is to bring real profit, technical experts alone are not enough. From the start, you must involve people with pure business thinking in innovation teams.
Data, Security, and the Rise of AI Agents
The transition from simple chatbots to advanced solutions requires a new architecture and a prepared data base.
- Order in Data Has Gained New Meaning: You no longer need to have all data perfectly organized in tables. Advanced artificial intelligence can handle unstructured content. The key is to eliminate noise, duplicate records, and inconsistent information from your data. An AI model is only as good as the quality of the data you provide it.
- Protect Your Know-How: A big trend today is AI agents, which can perform autonomous tasks directly in internal systems (e.g., process a return in an e-shop or communicate with a customer). However, if set up incorrectly, they can leak sensitive company data to the external environment. The "forbid everything" mode is as unsustainable as "allow everything". The solution is testing in safe isolated environments (sandboxes).
- Proceed in Small Steps: The AI model is not deterministic code – it can make mistakes. Implement changes in small parts, maintain control over individual steps, and don't forget about backups.
If you're looking for a way to safely integrate AI agents and your own data into company processes, check out our intelligent solution Fluidum AI. For a comprehensive overview of possibilities in the field of software development, visit our section for AI development and research.
Leadership and Corporate Culture
- Bet on Internal Motivation: Financial rewards and bonuses work only in the short term. Long-term drive is achieved when you build an open corporate culture based on respect, mutual cooperation, and the courage to pilot new things.
- Work-life Balance is a Myth: There is only life balance. Work forms a substantial part of our day. Instead of precisely counting hours, it's more important to understand where you and your people draw energy from.
- Support Natural Curiosity: The best advice for modern managers at the end – be more curious yourself and create a safe space in the company for curiosity and experimentation in your teams.
Listen to the Entire Episode of the Biznislab Podcast
Want to find out why querying AI in Slovak might cost you twice as much as in English or how KInIT connected research with the tradition of the greatest inventor from our region?
