digital days 2024 - the entire spectrum of digitalization live in Linz

The OÖN digital days 2024 once again demonstrated the great diversity of digitalization: the spectrum of topics ranged from innovative digital corporate and HR strategies to AI in marketing & sales to alleviating the shortage of skilled workers through digital assistance systems in the production environment. In short: it was exciting!

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) kicked off this year's OÖNachrichten digital conference in Linz. "Since the use of artificial intelligence, many companies and agencies have abandoned their own thinking altogether," was the provocative thesis in the first keynote speech by Robert Seeger, Founder and CEO of the Agency for Communication Art. The result: "Automatically generated average, but never a wild breakthrough." In his humorous yet serious discussion of generative AI in online marketing, Seeger encouraged the audience "not to become AI and algorithm puppets" and came to the trenchant conclusion in his keynote speech: "Keep the magic! And always remain genuinely human!"

"Future Total" was the title of Maximilian Böger's presentation. The change expert and entrepreneur summarized the possibilities of using artificial intelligence to bring about significant change with the statement: "The opportunity has never been greater!" With the rapid development of AI, the no-return button has long since been activated, but this is harmless and comparable to the breakthrough of innovative technologies in the past. According to Böger, the potential of artificial intelligence, especially that of GPTs (Generative Pre-Trained Transformers), is enormous: "80 percent of everyday tasks can be automated with GPTs", but you have to give the AI precise instructions: "GPT is like an apprentice - you have to tell it exactly what to do."

Digitalization to alleviate the shortage of skilled workers

The subsequent panel discussion with Johannes Reichenberger (CEO ventopay GmbH), Markus Huber-Lindinger (Managing Director EREMA GmbH) and Gerlinde Djumlija (Head of Marketing Primetals Technologies) was dedicated to the question of how companies can use digitalization to counter the shortage of skilled workers. The tenor of the discussion was: "We need the courage to change!" Creative solutions are needed in order to remain internationally competitive. Markus Huber-Lindinger gave an interesting insight into how digitalization is used in practice at EREMA, a manufacturer of plastics recycling systems: "Digitalization and AI are creating many new tools that we are also using. We are making sure that we get the good people we have away from repetitive tasks. What is repetitive can be taken over by a computer-aided system - there will be many more possibilities in the future. The good people, with their knowledge and creativity, can devote themselves to new tasks. This is the case for us both in the process organization and in the products and services."

In the talk, Oliver Lehner (Vice President Partner & Products, DIGITAL2GO) and Mario Pichler (Head of Automation, Pankl High Performance Systems) used the successful application of smartdesk at Pankl High Performance Systems to show that digitalization can also be used to counteract the shortage of skilled workers in the field of manual assembly: By using this AI-supported optical assistance system, it was possible to achieve a zero-defect rate in the manual assembly of transmission components at the Kapfenberg plant right from the start of production - despite many new employees joining the permanent staff due to the high demand for motorcycles. This is because the smartdesk is responsible for training and qualifying new recruits and substitutes. This means that the company will also be able to react flexibly in the future in the event of an increased order situation or staff absences.

AI - potential and risks

The opportunities and risks of AI were the focus of the next contributions: Maimuna Mosser, Country Director Google Austria, highlighted the great opportunity and potential of AI for Austria's economic output: this could be increased by up to EUR 40 billion, which corresponds to an increase of 8 percent.

Alexander Riedler, Head of the Cybercrime Working Group of the Upper Austrian Provincial Police Directorate, explained how to protect oneself from cybercrime in an increasingly interconnected world. The most important thing here is to follow a few simple rules, which Riedler briefly summarized: use your common sense, keep software up to date, use secure passwords, make regular backups and switch off data connections when they are not needed.

Innovative digitization strategies

Digitization strategies in various companies - from tech start-ups to media and telecommunications companies to the globally active mechanical engineering group ENGEL - rounded off the broad range of topics covered at the digital conference in Linz, which once again provided participants with informative and exciting insights into the world of digital transformation this year.