Guest contributor |
For more than 50 years, Zebra Technologies’ mission has been to provide our customers across all industries with the technology to unlock productivity gains within their organisation – whether that be by optimising assets, improving worker efficiencies or gaining real-time insight into their operations.
In 2024, our innovations continued to align with this mission. We’ve partnered with the world’s leading companies, including fellow Microsoft partner Qualcomm Technologies, to develop a first for the enterprise market: an on-device generative AI, large language model solution. Zebra is taking generative AI capabilities to the edge for frontline workers and removing the requirement for cloud connectivity. There are several reasons we have taken this strategic approach and many key benefits our customers and partners can gain from AI.
The central pillar of our mission at Zebra is to put our customers first. We are seeing an ever-growing demand to capture and deliver on the potential of generative AI in an industry-specific manner. We continually hear from clients who are looking to use generative AI to address today’s business challenges and boost revenues.
One of our key joint venture partners, SAP, recently identified in its AI: State of Adoption 2024 report that 67 per cent of companies have partially defined AI objectives, with 79 per cent of companies overall implementing or evaluating AI solutions. This research aligns with Zebra’s generative AI strategy, as we are building generative AI tools to deliver industry-specific use cases. Each industry has its own unique set of challenges and opportunities, which our generative AI on-device solution can help to address.
For example, Zebra’s Global Shopper Study found that 60 per cent of employees express frustration over having to perform low-level tasks rather than helping customers. We can see a future for our retail customers where generative AI tools go beyond helping employees to complete tasks such as restocking shelves more quickly, to reach a point where an enterprise tool can anticipate workers’ needs and function as an enabler. For example, the right enterprise mobile computer solution could provide an employee with real-time answers to any shop floor questions and queries about store policies – improving the customer experience.
In addition to being beneficial for retail use cases, generative AI is also helpful in a healthcare environment where clinicians, consultants and nurses can access the technology on their mobile device. For instance, healthcare professionals can access real-time and accurate information about medicine dosage and specific treatment support while at the patient’s bedside. This eliminates human error, ensures accuracy and improves both the patient’s safety and overall treatment experience.
We can also identify benefits in increased security protection; an on-device solution keeps sensitive data on the device rather than exporting to the cloud. Linked to this, without the need for cloud service, the solution can be enabled in low/no connection areas, which reduces the barrier for usage in harder-to-reach locations such as underground sites or at sea. This removes latency (a user should see immediate response times) and the minimal cloud calls reduces costs.
Early adopters who are already evaluating and implementing generative AI solutions will have a huge advantage over their competitors due to the identified efficiency and productivity gains, as well as the ability to enhance customer experiences and accelerate the training of new employees. In a world where industries are struggling with frontline worker labour shortages, prioritising the worker experience is becoming increasingly important to ensure employees stay motivated, informed and empowered.
Deploying generative AI solutions for frontline workers is not without its challenges, however. Businesses starting their AI journey need to fully understand the issues they are trying to solve and the key performance indicators for the project. They should also be mindful of the potential costs associated with running AI on large servers and look at on-device/far-edge solutions as they improve the customer experience, reduce costs and protect privacy and security.
The generative AI solution on Zebra devices is powered by a longstanding partnership with Qualcomm, and is built on a wide array of open-source and third-party models as part of Zebra’s strategy to deliver effective on-edge AI solutions across multiple industries. This makes Zebra’s devices an ideal choice for businesses seeking reliable, scalable and secure AI solutions that directly address the challenges of deploying AI at the edge.
Rowan Fuller is global sales leader of consulting partners and alliances at Zebra Technologies
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