Artificial intelligence, an opportunity for businesses in Hérault?

“Two years ago, few companies in the region asked us to help them integrate artificial intelligence apart from the most innovative companies. But today, we feel a very strong enthusiasm, in all types of companies. “businesses in the region Everyone sees an interest, an opportunity and even the hope, sometimes exaggerated, that this will solve all the company's problems!”. Franck Berthu is an expert in digital transformation for EDIH OccitanIA, an innovation hub to accelerate the digitalization of businesses in Occitanie, and coordinator of the Transfo Digitale Day event organized by the Ad'Occ agency on November 21 in Toulouse.

In fact, artificial intelligence arouses growing curiosity, including among VSE/SME owners. According to a Bpifrance Le Lab survey carried out in December 2023, 15% of them now use generative AI on a regular or occasional basis (compared to 5% at the start of 2023) and 13% say they want to use it soon. And for good reason: this promising new technology can write the minutes of a meeting, revolutionize user testing (as proposed by Odaptos in Montpellier), ensure the maintenance of railway infrastructures (as the Montpellier company RAILwAI does) or help a customer.

This is what SkyTalker does, for example, the chatbot developed by the Montpellier start-up In Astra for the Hérault Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Another Montpellier company, Lundi Matin, allows SMEs and local businesses to respond online to customers in a personalized way via GPT Builder, its software for creating and managing chatbots.

They “have to get started”

“All companies that have IT in their value chain must adopt artificial intelligence”warns Franck Berthu. They can be supported in this sense. The Occitanie Digital 113 digital cluster launched the Occitanie is AI program with the ambition of helping regional companies effectively integrate AI into their operational processes, in order to improve their productivity and innovation.

An entire ecosystem is about to be built in Montpellier around artificial intelligence, notably with IA Méditerranée, a grouping of key players in the technological, academic and entrepreneurial ecosystem of the metropolis. It has more than 1,100 local players including around sixty companies, whether industrialists like General Electric (250 employees in Montpellier, which uses AI to identify environmental factors impacting its installations) or SMEs like Vogo, Pradeo and Sweep.

“Not so easy to integrate AI”

Accountants are one of the white-collar professions that will be particularly impacted by the development of AI, as blue-collar workers were by robotization. Marc Aufort, president of the Axylis firm in Béziers, is perfectly aware of this. “With AI, our role as accountants will evolve considerably within two, three, maybe five years”.

But he prefers to see it as an opportunity rather than a threat. “Our data entry operators will improve their skills to become data analysts. Our job will become more interesting and we will be able to give our clients high value-added advice in addition to financial statements”.

However, the adoption of this new technology does not go smoothly. “Some employees are afraid of it, naturallycontinues Marc Aufort. It's mostly a generational question. As a business leader, I try to anticipate this change and reassure them that AI is a very good tool that we will learn to use.”.

“It’s not that simple to integrate AI, you have to find the tools adapted to your needs”confirms Pierre Vannier, CEO of the IT consulting firm Flint in Montpellier, which notably offers an AI solution to help recruiters automatically carry out an initial sorting of received CVs in record time. “The knowledge economy – from doctors to lawyers, from managers to engineers – will be transformed. Some will gain in productivity and expertise” he predicts. But others risk seeing their profession disappear, making the adoption of artificial intelligence a major challenge for the region.