AI Lab: experiencing firsthand what AI can add to your own use cases

'The inspiration factor was huge,' says Hans Geurts of VVTI about his visit to PwC's AI Lab. 'We came out even more enthusiastic than I had expected. Why? Because it wasn't a theoretical meeting. Our people experienced firsthand what AI can add to our own use cases. No PowerPoint presentations but working with practical examples.'

Getting started yourself

Hans van der Leeden, Digital Tax Transformation Leader and partner at PwC, sees the enthusiasm daily in the more than three hundred clients he has guided with the AI lab team in the first year. 'We show people in a low threshold way how they can make both the non-core domains of their company, such as tax, legal, and compliance, and the core domains work smarter with AI. We use our own applications, Microsoft Copilot, and our alliances with Harvey and Leah for legal. They get to work on their own cases in the lab and discover the possibilities, regardless of their background or knowledge of GenAI.'

Guarding against the hype 

Hans Geurts appreciates this pragmatic approach. He sees the importance of GenAI for his organization but is cautious about jumping on every hype. 'I can introduce all kinds of IT applications, but the main question is whether it adds value and can be practically applied by our people. We are looking for use cases that deliver value in practice, both at the headquarters and at our terminals where the actual operation takes place. I don't want to build a patchwork of legacy for the future. So, I specifically looked for mature GenAI applications for the headquarters that I can adopt from a party like PwC, who also speaks the same language as the people who will work with it.'

GenAI for tax, finance, and legal

What kind of use cases does Hans Geurts think of for VTTI? 'Our experts file corporate tax returns, for which they have to go through forty Excel sheets every time. That kind of repetitive work can be supported well with AI. Or our legal professionals who want to compare a large number of contracts for things like payment terms, indexation, and other conditions, AI can also help speed up the settlement process. And what about our Finance department that reconciles entities. With data from those Excel sheets, GenAI can do forecasting and scenario analysis. We experienced a glimpse of that in the AI Lab.'

Ensuring everyone keeps up

Hans Geurts visited the AI Lab in Amsterdam with half of the VTTI Leadership Team and the functional managers below them: 'The presence of the leadership team at that session is important because their tone from the top is crucial for the success of tech-enabled transformation. And they can allocate resources to accelerate business challenges with GenAI. We also took the responsible managers from finance, legal, compliance, and tax because they will be the ones working with it in practice.'

There was also someone present who said they had only heard of GenAI a month ago. Hans van der Leeden: 'That doesn't matter for participation in the Lab. That is also part of transformation: ensuring that everyone can keep up. We don't speak of "human led, tech-enabled transformation" for nothing.'

Disruption

To what extent does Hans van der Leeden think GenAI will cause disruption in the market in the coming years? 'I think people tend to overestimate the short-term effect and underestimate the long-term effect. In the next two to three years, I expect many companies to feel safe, but in three to five years, I think a lot will change - also for a company like PwC itself, by the way. The disruption of GenAI is definitely coming. But how exactly that change will look, remains speculative.'

Hans Geurts sees in this observation above all the need for every company to start experimenting now: 'The speed of change will be higher for a technology company than for a more traditional industry like oil and gas, but that is no reason to wait. At VTTI, we want to, with small AI steps, ensure that we move in the right direction and become consciously competent. Our afternoon at the AI Lab has helped us tremendously in that regard and will certainly have a follow-up.'