00:05All right, I'm joined now by Edouard Bouy, Deputy and CEO and Chairman of Bouy Telecom.
00:13Welcome to the show.
00:14Good morning, and congratulations for pronouncing bouy, which is not an easy word for a non-French speaker.
00:21Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I've been practicing my French pronunciations all week, so I really appreciate that.
00:26Now, you're a French multinational company operating in over 80 countries in many industries from construction, telecommunications, media and entertainment.
00:37And as part of your innovation program, you've been investing in digital strategies, especially artificial intelligence.
00:45So I want to know, how are you using AI technology?
00:48Yes, thank you for pointing that out.
00:50We've got six different activities at Bouygues, construction, roadworks, television, telecoms, real estate.
00:58And we use AI in all of these different sectors.
01:02We've been using it to mainly gain more efficiencies, but also to bring better products to our customers and strengthen
01:12our competitiveness.
01:14Can you describe the impact AI has had within different industries in which you operate?
01:20Because, you know, it's really become mainstream just the past six or seven months.
01:25Yes. Well, first, in the construction industry, we're starting, it's the very beginning, of course,
01:32but we're starting to use AI for product management, design processes.
01:39And, for example, we're starting to test generative planning with a U.S. startup.
01:45And it's the beginning, but it's very promising because we can start to see some real progress.
01:51We've got AI for energy and services with Equance.
01:58We can monitor and do some predictive maintenance on some installations.
02:03So you can start to measure vibration and things like that.
02:08And you can start to see something and change it apart before it goes wrong, which is, of course, really
02:15good for quality.
02:16In media, with TF1, we use it for content creation.
02:22We can improve recommendations for our users.
02:26And we can also optimize broadcasting operations.
02:30The group legal department also uses AI.
02:34You can sift through enormous amounts of existing or past contracts
02:39and kind of optimize the way you're going to work on contracts that are being written.
02:46So, yeah, there's lots of different applications.
02:51One last one in our telecom business, we can analyze our customers
02:59and we can predict the ones that are going to have trouble coming up with payment.
03:05And so we can call them in advance and try to find an easier way for them
03:10or maybe put them on a better plan or maybe change their payment periods, things like that.
03:17And AI helps us with that.
03:18That's fascinating to see so many use cases already being deployed.
03:23How do you think AI can improve your services?
03:25And I want to know what sector do you think will have the most impact?
03:28Because you named a lot, but which one are you kind of the most excited about right now?
03:32I think they're all going to be going to go through a real change with AI.
03:39But I've got some examples that are showing that in energy and services,
03:44there's some real life impact already happening.
03:50So I'll give you an example.
03:52At Equance, we've got a nuclear activity called Eneo Nuclear.
03:56And they go through maintenance and they have to verify more than 2,000 temperature sensors
04:04in some nuclear sites where they work.
04:07And they would just have to go through every single one, regardless of what's going on, etc.
04:12Well, with AI, we've been able to use historical data
04:17and prove that you don't need to go that often and without any extra risk, of course, with nuclear.
04:24And we've been able to push from two to four and a half years between two rounds of maintenance
04:31without any extra risk.
04:33That's about 10,000 saved work hours.
04:36And of course, that goes with our client.
04:38Our client has to accept these conditions, but it worked very well.
04:43That's huge savings for the same result.
04:47What challenges has the company faced when implementing AI and how are you addressing them?
04:53Well, I think to get the most out of AI, we need some change on the people level.
05:01We need people to not be afraid of AI because it is a little scary.
05:07It's something that's incredibly different.
05:09And all of us that have tried out generative AI have seen how powerful it can be.
05:18So, of course, like many powerful tools, it's a little scary at first.
05:23But I think we can identify areas where AI can add significant value and we can take our skills,
05:35our people, and make them better.
05:37And I think I heard something last night at a dinner that I thought was very interesting.
05:44The word AI, instead of artificial intelligence, it should be used to mean augmented intelligence.
05:52It's making people more efficient, more powerful instead of replacing them.
05:58And I think that's something that we need our workforce to know.
06:05It's going to help them.
06:06It's going to make them faster.
06:07It's going to make them better.
06:08And it's going to remove all the repetitive stuff.
06:12Well, it also makes me think that instead of people feeling like they're competing with it,
06:18it's actually helping it.
06:19It's gone from enemy to friend.
06:21So, my last question is on the dangers.
06:25How can those be avoided?
06:28Well, I think since it's very powerful, it can be used for good or for bad.
06:35And we need to have some very strong ethical principles in the way we operate.
06:43We use AI.
06:44I mean, we already have ethical principles for the way we do everything today.
06:50But these need to be enforced in the use of AI.
06:55For example, you're capable of doing many, many things and analyzing your clients, for example.
07:03We don't want to go and start spying on clients and then doing some awkward things.
07:12We need to implement some very, very strict internal rules on what you can do and what you cannot do
07:20with AI.
07:21We can certainly make our clients' lives better.
07:24We can certainly make our employees' lives better by removing the repetitive stuff and removing some of the boring work.
07:33Yeah.
07:33So, I think we have a real responsibility to use it in the right way and to use it and
07:41to start using it now so that we can understand it better and really tweak which way we're going with
07:47AI.
07:48Well, thank you so much for joining Fascinating Innovations and we'll see you out in the main floor.
07:54Thank you for having me.
07:55All right.
07:56You're watching Viva Tech News.
07:58Don't forget Elon Musk is joining Viva Tech today from 4 to 5 p.m. at Dome de Paris.
08:04And that's right next to Port de Versailles.
08:07So, we're very excited.
08:08Lots of, of course, conversation about artificial intelligence.
08:11I'm sure we'll be had with him.
08:14All right.
08:15Let's bring out our next guest.
08:16You're watching Viva Tech News.
08:18You're watching Viva Tech News.
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