Artificial intelligence (AI) is on everyone's lips. However, many managers are still struggling with the question of how they can use AI profitably for their company - as many possibilities are associated with high investment costs and data protection issues. In order to make AI use cases more visible and to introduce its most important customers to technologies that could become important for their business in the coming years, Microsoft has opened four Experience Centers worldwide. A small group of digital-savvy VBKI members were able to visit the Munich high-tech showroom for Microsoft's most important 4,000 customers for an AI workshop thanks to the mediation of VBKI Digital spokespersons Maik Ludewig and Norman Bernhardt. 

For one day, everything revolved around the question of how AI can be integrated and used in leadership and management.To kick things off, there was a tour of the Experience Center with insights into a wide variety of AI use cases: The examples currently being presented include a cashierless supermarket, a doctor's surgery in which the AI takes care of paperwork while patients are still being spoken toa car manufacturer that analyzes data from its test cars while they are still on the road and corrects errors, and a platform for digital twins for workshop automation using digital robotics. 

The subsequent workshops and presentations discussed how to identify the right and effective AI use cases for the respective company or how data and analysis platforms can be standardized. In between, there were courses on prompting and building agents. It quickly became clear that the era of generative AI, i.e. language models such as ChatGPT, is coming to an end. The future belongs to Agentic AI - AI systems that can react independently to changing conditions, make decisions and carry out tasks without direct human intervention.  

The eventful day concluded with an executive discussion with Patrick Schidler, Head of Solution Sales for SMEs at Microsoft Germany, who warned that AI will prevail everywhere. It is better to surf the AI wave now than to lose touch.