Picture: Andreas Jenni / Midjourney

Electrifying opportunities.

1. What is AI?

IBM describes artificial intelligence as follows:

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving skills.

Source: https://www.ibm.com/de-de/topics/artificial-intelligence

The development of artificial intelligence is increasing exponentially. AI software programs were developed as early as the 1950s. In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue beat the then world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a chess match (and rematch).

In 2023, the number of large language models will increase significantly. ChatGPT leads to enormous changes in the performance of AI, companies see potential to increase their corporate values.

2. what impact does AI have on teams in companies?

In companies like Frey & Frey, where emotions play a major role due to the mapping of the company's DNA and culture in space, AI initially seems like a foreign body. Corporate culture cannot be standardized. On the contrary, visions should be as unique as possible in order to stand out from the competition and create identification.

Nevertheless, AI has an impact on us as individuals. Anyone who can deal with change is well advised to deal with the development of artificial intelligence and use the advantages it brings for the company and its team. Today, influence is usually brought into companies via people without having a plan for the processes. Whether it's navigation, text correction, speech recognition or anomaly detection, we all work with AI every day without really realizing it.

Some tools become equal interlocutors and harbor the risk of people withdrawing and interpersonal interaction suffering as a result. On the other hand, artificial intelligence can simplify processes and repetitive tasks and relieve the burden on humans, which in turn allows us to focus on our human strengths such as empathy, emotional intelligence, intuition, abstract thinking and improvised action.

In the best case scenario, people will be able to concentrate on being human in the future. Their ability to analyze even non-verbal communication is still unsurpassed. On the other hand, humans are the only living beings with an indestructible need for appreciation, which inevitably means that we have to see AI as a tool and aid to build on our human strengths.

3. How do we deal with AI at Frey & Frey?

We try to embrace change in a positive way and maximize the benefits for the team and the company.

We are already using AI in various areas of application to expand our expertise, speed and quality. When measuring complex building structures, AI helps us to measure rooms. BIM is becoming more and more established in the construction sector and prevents any errors at an early stage of the project, which is less cost-intensive, creates more compatibility and allows different trades to work together more efficiently.

In particular, AI is already implemented in software that we use in 3D visualizations. There are a number of applications that can inspire us and make our everyday work easier.

We try to promote acceptance of change, knowledge sharing and creativity by means of internal training and appropriate awareness-raising.

AI has become indispensable in creation. Tools such as Midjourney, Firefly, Stable Diffusion and others are excellent tools for achieving a useful result with minimal time and cost. Unique and excellent results that strike the right chord and are geared towards customer needs still require an in-depth examination of the subject matter - people still have the advantage here, their emphatic and emotional skills are the confidence-building element and therefore indispensable for successful projects. One weakness of the tools is that it is currently difficult to make subsequent changes to the generated image and faulty details (e.g. shadows, blurring, reflections, etc.) and over-sharpened, overly perfect images are still common. Furthermore, developers are often not short of money for their applications.  

The technology behind tools such as Midjourney, etc. is developing rapidly and is becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex. It is therefore to be expected that the results will also improve massively in the near future.

In our opinion at least, this does not detract from creativity - because in the end, AI can only be as creative as the code it contains. Even today, good images require the right words and creative approaches to text prompts.  

We will stay tuned to the topic!