This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 11, 2024 - November 17, 2024

In 2022, Dr Sai Chong Yeh stood before the audience at the National Solution Forum 2022 organised by Sunway Group and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) with a bold proposition — to harness artificial intelligence (AI) in the fight against floods.

With the power to forecast and mitigate flood damage, Sai envisioned a future where communities could be warned of impending disasters. But his AI solution, Ever AI, was more than a one-trick tool. Sai’s vision stretched further — to create a platform that anyone could tailor to their specific needs. His goal was to make AI not only powerful but also accessible, whether for flood forecasting or the myriad challenges waiting for a tech-based solution.

“The idea is that the power of AI should not be limited to serve a small number of people, but it should be open and accessible to everyone. This is why we started the company Ever AI,” he says.

Today, the founder of Ever AI Technologies wants Ever AI to serve as a no-code AI platform that provides companies with accessible solutions to their business operations, streamlining tasks and optimising workflow.

A no-code AI is a software platform that allows users to develop an application, typically with a simple user interface (UI) such as drag and drop, without the need for coding knowledge.

Ever AI’s advantage is that it is a customisable platform that can adapt to specific applications requested by clients. Being a Malaysian company, Ever AI’s localised knowledge allows it to utilise its insights to advise companies on the data that needs to be collected and supplied for their businesses.

“I think a lot of the solutions on the market are similar. A model like ChatGPT is a pre-trained model that can be applied to many applications. So what we do is, the company or the small and medium enterprise (SME) can provide us with their own data, and from their data, we can help them build their own customised AI for the specific applications that they want to build,” explains Sai.

Everyone, regardless of their proficiency in AI, is encouraged to use Ever AI, as the platform caters to both seasoned and inexperienced AI users.

“They can come from any industry or background such as finance, biology or economics. It can be from anywhere other than computer science or engineering. But for those people who are more advanced in computer science, engineering or come from a technical background, they can also use our platform to quickly build and deploy a proof-of-concept (POC),” he says.

Ever AI has received funding from Jati Growth as an angel investor and a grant from the Cradle CIP Spark for technology start-ups. The company continues to look out for the next round of funding to further develop its platform.

Sai believes only two kinds of companies will exist in the future — those that use AI and those that go out of business.

With the market growing more competitive each day, investing in AI can help SMEs get a foot in the door to compete against bigger companies.

“It’s very hard to compete in a traditional way with a company that uses AI. Before this, AI was quite limited to big companies that could afford to invest [in it], but now AI is actually getting more accessible after ChatGPT,” explains Sai.

“Businesses will have to catch up very quickly with the consumer trend. And if these processes are not automated with AI, then they will be less competitive compared with the companies that can use AI.”

He gives an example of a marketing company that is tasked with designing ad posters for online posting. The average worker would be able to create perhaps five posters a day, have them uploaded and then assess the performance. But with AI, 1,000 designs could be supplied within a single day while producing a more efficient and accurate read on the performance.

With technology advancing at such a rapid rate, it is inevitable that SMEs will one day need to adapt to the changes. Choosing not to do so will cause their growth to stagnate. For instance, websites used to be deemed unnecessary to businesses, but have become almost mandatory today.

While there is concern that AI will take the place of some jobs, Sai sees it as a natural progression of technological advancements in society. He compares it to the invention of machinery in the agriculture industry, adding that technology is a means to simplify laborious tasks and humans will find other avenues of work.

“For me, AI is actually just a tool that helps us to be more efficient. So I think this is going to be a very similar development.”

Businesses implementing AI used to come up against an indifferent attitude towards the technology, but that is no longer the case. Sai says where its cost was once a deterrent, the value of AI is slowly being recognised and the necessity of its use now outweighs its cost.

“I think today people are very well aware and well informed that they need AI. Whether they like it or not, they have been using AI in their everyday life. They used to be very cost-conscious because they didn’t see how AI could benefit them. But now this is no longer a problem; people are now aware that they will need to invest in this,” he says.

The challenge has shifted from awareness of AI to its application. However, the development of AI will be limited to those with the technical skills to make further advancements in the AI scene.

“The challenge is people are limited by their technical skills and abilities to use or build AI. [If someone studied] biology or economics, they don’t have the technical talent to build and develop these applications,” he says.

A contributing factor to this, Sai believes, is that Malaysia is still considered an infant in the AI market, lagging years behind countries like the US and China when it comes to technology. While advanced AI models like OpenAI and Microsoft AI are being released, Malaysia is only in the early stages of building and applying AI.

“The challenge that I see is that a lot of local companies are still new to this, [even though it is] something that has been around for a very long time,” he says.

Obstacles aside, Sai has a positive outlook on the future of AI integration in businesses and looks forward to expanding Ever AI into regional markets.

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play.