PlayStation boss says AI won’t replace humans as Amazon unveils new foundation models

Tesco Business Solutions appoints new COO to spearhead OPEX and Joseph Joseph automates key processes

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Michael Hill
12/06/2024

PEX Network’s weekly news bulletin rounds up the latest from the process community including operational excellence (OPEX), digital transformation, business process management (BPM), process mining, artificial intelligence (AI) and much more.

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AI won’t replace people in game development, PlayStation boss claims

AI will never replace the “human touch” in the video game development process, according to PlayStation’s Hermen Hulst. He spoke to the BBC alongside co-CEO Hideaki Nishino this week as Sony celebrates the 30^th anniversary of the launch of the PlayStation console. Hulst said that, while AI has the potential to “revolutionize” gaming, there would always be a future for human developers.

Advances in AI technology have the potential to allow many of the mundane parts of game development to become automated, reported the BBC. However, this has caused concerns that AI systems will also take over the creative process, with voice actors in the US recently striking over fears the tech could be used to replace them.

“I suspect there will be a dual demand in gaming: one for AI-driven innovative experiences and another for handcrafted, thoughtful content,” Hulst said. “Striking the right balance between leveraging AI and preserving the human touch will be crucial.”

Commenting, Bill Conner, CEO of Jitterbit and former adviser to Interpol and GCHQ, emphasized the importance of a human-machine partnership when it comes to any form of AI adoption. “It’s important to remember that AI isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. While it’s a powerful tool, its success hinges on the humans who operate and manage it. Even with AI automating tasks, human expertise remains crucial for decision-making and integration. This human-machine partnership fosters maximum efficiency while mitigating risks associated with over-reliance on AI.”

Watch thought leader Doug Shannon discuss keeping people at the core of AI adoption

Amazon unveils new generation of AI foundation models

Amazon unveiled Amazon Nova, a new generation of AI foundation models that have state-of-the-art intelligence across a wide range of tasks and industry-leading price performance. The Amazon Nova models, announced at AWS re:Invent this week, will be available in Amazon Bedrock and include Amazon Nova Micro (a very fast, text-to-text model) and Amazon Nova Lite, Amazon Nova Pro and Amazon Nova Premier (multi-modal models that can process text, images and videos to generate text). Amazon also launched two additional models – Amazon Nova Canvas (which generates studio-quality images) and Amazon Nova Reel (which generates studio-quality videos).

“Inside Amazon, we have about 1,000 generative AI applications in motion, and we’ve had a bird’s-eye view of what application builders are still grappling with,” commented Rohit Prasad, SVP of Amazon artificial general intelligence. “Our new Amazon Nova models are intended to help with these challenges for internal and external builders and provide compelling intelligence and content generation while also delivering meaningful progress on latency, cost-effectiveness, customization, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and agentic capabilities.”

Amazon stated that all Nova models are fast, cost-effective and have been designed to be easy to use with a customer’s systems and data. The models also support custom fine-tuning, which allows customers to point the models to examples in their own proprietary data that have been labeled to boost accuracy, it added. What’s more, Amazon Nova models have been optimized to make them easy to use and effective in agentic AI applications that require interacting with an organization’s proprietary systems and data through multiple APIs to execute multistep tasks.

Watch Andreas Welsch, author of the AI Leadership Handbook, explore agentic AI

Citi rolls out AI tools for employees across eight countries

American multinational investment bank and financial services giant Citigroup began rolling out new AI tools for around 140,000 employees across eight countries, according to senior executives. In a memo to staff, Tim Ryan, head of technology and business enablement, Ryan said explained how the tools work, reported Reuters.

Citi Assist searches internal bank policies and procedures and is like having a “super-smart coworker at your fingertips” to help navigate commonly used policies and procedures across HR, risk, compliance and finance, Ryan said. Another tool, Citi Stylus, can summarize, compare or search multiple documents at once.

Beginning this month, both tools will be accessible to employees in the US, Canada, Hungary, India, Ireland, Poland, Singapore and the UK, before being gradually expanded to other markets.

“These tools will help to simplify work and increase productivity,” Ryan said in a video interview with Reuters.

Tesco Business Solutions appoints new COO to spearhead OPEX

Tesco Business Solutions (TBS), the global solutions arm of Tesco Group, appointed James Glavey as new chief operating officer (COO) to drive OPEX, innovation and transformation across the organization. Glavey brings 19 years of experience from British Telecom (BT), where he held senior leadership roles in operations, transformation and commercial strategy. His focus on enhancing compliance, governance and operational efficiency aligns with an ongoing commitment to delivering exceptional value to the Tesco Group, its colleagues, customers and stakeholders, TBS stated.

“James brings a wealth of experience in operations, transformation and governance,” commented Sumit Mitra, CEO of TBS. “His leadership and expertise will continue to evolve our operations to deliver sustainable value for the business.”

Watch Cathy Gu, deputy divisional director at IQPC, preview OPEX Week: Business Transformation World Summit 2025

Joseph Joseph automates cash application, claims and deductions processes

International houseware manufacturer Joseph Joseph is automating its cash application and claims and Deductions processes. Joseph Joseph has chosen Esker to address challenges related to trade promotional and non-trade promotional deductions, which require extensive manual investigation, reviews and approvals outside of its SAP system via emails and spreadsheets, according to a press release.

“We are thrilled to be working with such a stylish and iconic household brand,” said Alistair Nicholas, managing director at Esker Northern Europe. “We look forward to improving the visibility of their claims processes and cash flow by automating the capture of remittance and deduction claims data.”

Watch Tariq Munir, APAC financial planning transformation lead at PepsiCo, discuss how to measure the impact of automation

Stagevision appoints Patrick J. Purdy to accelerate OPEX and growth

Corporate audiovisual and event production company Stagevision named Patrick Purdy chief financial officer (CFO) to accelerate OPEX and growth across North America. Purdy joins Stagevision from C&H Electric, Inc., where he improved financial performance through strategic gross profit initiatives while maintaining cost discipline. He also led successful working capital optimization efforts and streamlined financial operations through process automation and technology implementation.

“Patrick’s proven ability to drive OPEX and enhance financial performance makes him the ideal executive to lead our finance, IT and HR organizations through our next phase of growth,” said Scott Tomlinson, CEO of StageVision. “His expertise in optimizing operations while maintaining strong financial discipline will be instrumental as we scale our presence across North America.”