Russell Dalgleish, Chair and co-founder of the Scottish Business Network, a company that connects and supports Scottish businesses through networking and collaboration, is leading the charge in integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to amplify Scotland’s entrepreneurial reach.

In this Entrepreneur UK interview Dalgleish reveals how AI is reshaping global engagement, fostering innovation, and driving business into an autonomous future.

How do you see AI transforming the core operations of your business in the next 5-10 years?
AI will enable us to better select and engage our global diaspora, identify key opportunities for Scottish innovation in international markets, and connect our startups and scaleups with the appropriate investors, partners and customers.

Over the next ten years, I anticipate that our processes will develop into autonomous systems, allowing every Scottish business direct access to in-country support.

What AI tools or technologies are you currently using, and how have they impacted your business efficiency or growth?
All companies listed The Scottish Govtech Cluster contain some element of AI or machine learning. We expect the demand for these technologies to explode as governments look at how to transform the service delivery in the citizen.

Related: Is AI the Key to Unlocking the Future of Work?

Do you believe AI will replace human jobs in your industry, or will it enhance human roles? Why?
We will see AI replace human jobs but we will also see it enhance human roles. We will see some jobs disappear or the numbers employed fall. However, we will also see new roles develop which until now we could not have imagined outside the world of science fiction.

What is important is to ensure that we work to augment our education systems to ensure that the next generation is best positioned to adapt to this new world.

What ethical concerns or challenges do you face when integrating AI into your business model?
Data privacy, security, bias and new types of crime are most certainly the key concerns in our community. Older members in my network fear AI-developed solutions being used to defraud them. To prevent this, governments must move much faster to protect criminal exploitation of AI.

How do you envision AI shaping customer experiences and decision-making processes in the future?
Through my own career arc, I have seen how decision-making and customer experiences have changed.

Now we see the dawn of a new age in the 2020s categorised by AI-controlled technology allowing for the anticipation of customer needs. Hyper personalisation is the norm and business shift to an even more focused customer-first mindset. Open data systems will allow the customer to apply moral decision making on suppliers to work with as ethics, climate and security are key decision drivers.

It is hard to imagine future decades, but one dominated by immersive technologies seems likely. Interfacing will take place at an ever more intrusive level with humans. As a consequence, an epidermal computer would be the norm.

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