- 10 minutes ago
AI’s real value lies in stronger productivity, smarter operations and better customer experiences.
Shanti Jusnita Johari, Executive Vice President of TM One, joins Niaga AWANI to discuss moving beyond experimentation and turning AI investments into measurable business outcomes.
Shanti Jusnita Johari, Executive Vice President of TM One, joins Niaga AWANI to discuss moving beyond experimentation and turning AI investments into measurable business outcomes.
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00:08Artificial intelligence or AI is rapidly moving from boardroom discussions to real-life business implementations.
00:16We can say that governments are investing billions and data center is expanding across the region
00:23and many companies are racing to adopt new AI tools.
00:27But critical questions remain. How can all the businesses implement and move beyond experimentations and turn AI into measurable value?
00:36And today on Niaga Awani, we're going to take a look at the reality of AI adoption.
00:41What are some of the challenges to scale innovations?
00:44Most importantly, what does it take for Malaysia to be a trusted player in the AI economy?
00:50And for that, I welcome to honour you. Our guest in the studio with me is Ashanti Jusinta Johari,
00:55the Executive Vice President of TM1. I want to say thank you very much.
00:58Ashanti, how are you?
01:00Thank you, Nina. Very good this morning.
01:02We can hear AI investment almost every day from new models, new AI tools and including new data center.
01:11But from your observations personally, when you speak to the leaders of enterprise,
01:18what's some of the challenges that they face when talking about AI?
01:22Yes. Thank you. Definitely as you started out by saying as well,
01:28I think in terms of the capabilities of AI today that we see is moving at an unprecedented pace.
01:36And organizations inherently are competitive and want to continuously improve.
01:43So we do see a lot of organizations starting to adopt in various skills,
01:51some experimenting, some having deployed in even their business operations.
01:56And of course, when implementation begins, then the risks are also being discovered.
02:03So I would like to mention there is an IBM Global Study that says 25% of AI initiatives have
02:15not yielded the expected ROI.
02:18And only 16% actually scales.
02:22So these statistics are very important.
02:25And it also proves that some of the challenges that enterprises in deploying AI see in Malaysia,
02:32it's not just Malaysia, it's a global challenge.
02:36So the two key challenges is how do business leaders get value creation out of their AI initiatives?
02:44And second is how do they scale these initiatives to really create true impact for their companies?
02:51Talking about AI, there's a lot of process from planning and execution and impact.
02:56I want to start with impact.
02:58With AI is moving this quickly, how should business leaders think differently when they want to start or elevate their
03:05investment in AI?
03:08Moving quickly is not an option.
03:11But as we all know, every organization has finite resources, right?
03:16So there's always many things, many areas to look at.
03:20So how do I choose to ensure that at the end of the day, we want the best outcome, right?
03:25So where I've seen implementations are able to generate the results that they want is always at how it begins,
03:36right?
03:37So the best way to ensure success is to begin with the end in mind.
03:42So always start with what is the aspiration that the business is trying to achieve?
03:48What are the goals, right?
03:50Then from there, to look at what are the challenges that is being faced today in terms of achieving these
03:59goals.
03:59And then the question comes around, how can AI actually overcome these challenges ultimately?
04:07So in terms of the sequencing, to begin with the end in mind, beginning with that progress.
04:14It should not start with technology.
04:18It should not start with, I just want, for example, adoption at a certain level in the organization.
04:27So the best is to start with the end in mind.
04:30We can say start with AI from first identify what are some of the challenges,
04:35and then how can we achieve our goals, and eventually how can AI be integrated within our work operations.
04:43This sounds good conceptually, but where are you actually seeing AI create measurable business value for today?
04:53Yes, in terms of some of the interesting use cases, right?
04:57So we see the evolution of AI.
04:59It's also, I think, whether we realize it or not, this sort of delving into AI has started in most
05:07organizations in many years.
05:09I mean, we started with, when we talk about robotic process automation,
05:13and now it has evolved into generative AI and agentic AI, and now people are even talking about artificial general
05:22intelligence.
05:23So in terms of the use cases that we see in organizations today, it's actually bridging between the generative AI
05:33and the agentic AI.
05:34And for businesses, the early use cases that some of us have seen and even experienced before is perhaps in
05:43the area of customer experience, right?
05:45We talk about, you started with having chatbots, right?
05:50But in terms of giving and sharing information for customers, but now some of those have become agentic AI.
05:57They are more autonomous.
05:58They can even make the process complete for you.
06:02They can take actions.
06:03And for those, the value creation is in either improved customer experience or reducing the cost to serve for organizations.
06:13Another pocket of goal is usually around productivity.
06:19And we've seen a lot more of this as well, right?
06:23Take for example in healthcare.
06:25You talk about radiology, processing of images.
06:30Yes, I mean, with AI, that can be done at a greater speed, improving overall patient experience as an example.
06:39The other area is in smart cities and we, TM, TM1 has actually deployed some of this.
06:49Our deployment in the city of Ipoh, for example, has been able to reduce travel time by at least 50%.
06:57So, these are some of the use cases that we see.
07:03Of course, there's also use cases in terms of compliance and all of that, how AI is used.
07:08And I think it is, the conversation is around much today is in the doing more with less with AI.
07:20But what is interesting is, I think in the future, I'm actually personally hopeful to see is if AI can
07:28be used in doing something that was not possible for us before.
07:32So, that would be very exciting for organisation and business as well.
07:37And we can expect that every organisation, companies and even industry is very excited for this.
07:44And so, if identifying the right outcome is the first challenge, what is the second?
07:50What is actually stopping the company's organisations from scaling the AI?
07:54Yes, scaling AI, it's related to the first challenge, right?
08:03It is balancing between the investments you make and the outcome, the value creation you get out of it.
08:11And usually, there are three areas that has to be addressed.
08:16First is infrastructure.
08:18Second is the talent and organisational capability.
08:22And thirdly is, of course, security in AI, the trust in AI itself, right?
08:29And infrastructure is not just about, a lot of people talk about compute, data centers, but it's also the overall
08:36ecosystem of the connectivity, cloud, services, and even the use cases in itself, right?
08:45Second, around organisational capability, it's not just about the AI specialists, but how the readiness of the organisation to change
08:54the way they work, right?
08:56And thirdly, security, I think it goes without saying, you know, as AI is being deployed in critical business operations,
09:05security becomes a very, very important area of focus.
09:12Infrastructure, talent, organisation capability, and even security and trust, those are the three components when you talk about scaling AI.
09:20Let's take infrastructure first.
09:24Malaysia has significantly attracted a lot of investment in data centers and cloud.
09:32Honestly, maybe share with us, haven't we solved that part of equation?
09:37What more do we need?
09:41Definitely, Malaysia has done remarkably well in attracting investments related to digital and AI.
09:50But in terms of in deployment, when we talk about implementation in businesses, the very key part of the infrastructure
09:58is orchestrating the whole environment from the compute to the cloud services, the connectivity, and all of that.
10:09And if you think about it, you talk about the most important part of deploying AI is also data, right?
10:20First and foremost, you have to have data.
10:22And in most organisations today, some of the data is still fragmented.
10:27So how the data is architect to ensure that it can be utilized with AI is one very important aspect
10:38to consider in infrastructure.
10:39So your data architecture.
10:41Second is in terms of the compute.
10:44There are many options today.
10:46The questions always business leaders talk about is whether you invest in the compute or you take it as a
10:55service, right?
10:55And increasingly, we see even the hardware part of the compute is evolving so fast that you might end up
11:05having obsolete equipment just in a matter of months.
11:09So those are some of the configurations in infrastructure.
11:14And for TM and TM1, I think this is really the area that we operate most in.
11:23We provide the infrastructure across all layers, right from the connectivity, data center, compute, and we try to deliver it,
11:35how we package it to deliver the use cases that the customer wants to work on in a managed service.
11:43So there is basically less risk to start and also very easy to scale.
11:50And also you mentioned about talent.
11:52Definitely we need people with the right scale, with the right talent to build and grow this.
11:58And there's a lot of discussion that Malaysia need more AI specialists to your honest opinion.
12:05Is that our biggest challenge?
12:06It is one of our challenges, I must say.
12:10AI specialists are also very important.
12:14And because it is advancing so fast, how do we keep the specialists and talents also aligned with the growth
12:24that we're seeing globally?
12:26And in that, for TM, we also make our investments and making sure that we have our AI specialists.
12:34I think we realize that as we, I would say, use the word maybe liberalized AI use, right, across all
12:45units and departments,
12:46we find that it's very important to also have a central party to coordinate all of these AI implementations and
12:53also to cater for more complex AI deployment.
12:59Our branch of multimedia university also has a faculty focused on AI today.
13:04So that's where we try to overcome some of these challenges around ensuring, not just TM, but Malaysia in general,
13:11have a pool of AI specialists that we can harness for the future.
13:17But the second part of when we talk about people and talent is the organization in itself, right?
13:25The deployment of AI is not just a technology project, right?
13:32It is really a whole transformation of the organization.
13:37And every leader needs to at least understand what AI is to be able to take that approach I mentioned
13:46just now of looking at what is it that I want to achieve for my business and how AI can
13:52leverage.
13:52This cannot be a conversation that a specialist would have.
13:56This has to be a business leader.
13:58In terms of that, organizations have to make sure that the wider employee is also ready, understands AI, and drive
14:10that culture of continuous improvement.
14:13Talent is very important.
14:14We cannot move this without the right people to push.
14:17And the third area that you also touch is security and trust.
14:22Trust is a very important thing.
14:25But does AI fundamentally changes the cyber risks for businesses, especially does business leader understand what are some of the
14:36biggest risks of AI, implementing AI, and how can we overcome it?
14:40Yeah.
14:41So where there are opportunities, there's always risk.
14:44And how AI actually changes the cyber security landscape are in many areas.
14:52One is from, you know, as we introduce, we talk about even examples, things like checkboard and all of that,
14:59that introduce new surface attacks possible on cyber security as well.
15:07But at the same time, AI is also used as a solution in defense.
15:12So it is on the two-pronged perspective, right?
15:16And increasingly, as we see this deployment around what is it that we need to secure, I always take this
15:25very simple analogy, right?
15:27When we talk about our human employees, right, we have, we usually put in place many guardrails, right, around, I
15:36mean, you need a password to access the business applications, right?
15:40How you handle your emails and documents are all secure, right?
15:44So in the same context, all these agentic AIs that are increasingly become autonomous, which means they are actually doing
15:53what the human employees are doing, right?
15:56Making decisions, taking actions, and all of that.
15:59So in the same analogy, shouldn't the agentic AIs that companies are beginning to develop have their own ideas, right?
16:06And it's a bit naive to think that AI would make mistakes, right?
16:10So then the question, if they do, who is accountable?
16:13How do you know, right?
16:15So there is a nice debate going on that I like to also participate in sometime is,
16:22should the AI agents be under the care of the CIO or under the care of the human capital head
16:30in organization?
16:30So it's a very interesting conversation.
16:33So, and when you think about it, traditionally, cybersecurity has been focused at securing different layers, asset by asset, whether
16:43it's your website or your laptops.
16:46So the solutions have been rather fragmented.
16:50But when AI is deployed, it will cut across your network, your connectivity, your applications, and all of that.
16:57So this more horizontal approach to looking at how we secure AI is very important.
17:05And for TM1, that was the whole concept around our TM Cyber Defense Center.
17:12So we take this fusion approach of a single operating plane that monitors and responses across all the environments in
17:24the digital ecosystem of a business.
17:26And that is 24-7 that is run by Malaysian expertise.
17:31So this is, I think, a very important area.
17:34A lot of the conversations around AI have focused around security today.
17:39It's very important how can we manage the use, utilizations of AI, fairness, balance, but also to ensure that it's
17:48very, very safe.
17:50But talking about safety protections, we have that global cloud providers like cybersecurity firms, technology companies, and system integrators can
18:00provide many of these capabilities.
18:02But one question we should ask, why should enterprise choose TM1?
18:07I would always like to say that, you know, TM1, we're very unique in the sense that we operate across
18:16all the layers of infrastructure, platform, applications, and even the solutions, right?
18:23We manage today more than 7,000 enterprise, public agencies, and ministries.
18:30So this experience gives us a very good understanding of the Malaysian environment and the businesses today.
18:38Our value proposition is really curated, best-of-breed digital solutions, which we either develop ourselves or we also have
18:51a global ecosystem and local ecosystem of partners that work with us.
18:56Of course, we are very 100% Malaysian, so most of my specialists in the area in cloud or in
19:06AI or in infrastructure, they're all Malaysian.
19:10And I think support is one of the areas that most of our customers demand very highly of us and
19:19that we always try to ensure that we do really well.
19:23And of course, at the end of the day is being able to operate all of that in a secured
19:29environment, right?
19:31It's a trusted orchestrator.
19:33So, and we, for us, if you ask us, how do we see our success, right?
19:39For me, we are successful when our customers are able to get value, they can create value from the technology
19:48and services that we provide to them.
19:52Thank you for helping us understand a lot on this.
19:55But before we end our conversation and session here, if we were to have a conversation in 2030 especially, what
20:02would have to be true for you to say for Malaysia and TM1 had generally succeeded in the AI economy?
20:09So, I reference the Malaysia AI nation in 2030, whose agenda is positioned around AI being the key economic driver
20:26for Malaysia, right?
20:27And I relate that to TM.
20:33This year is actually our 80th year.
20:37Congratulations!
20:38It's always our 80th birthday this year.
20:40And happy birthday.
20:42Thank you very much.
20:43And to me, this demonstrates two things, right?
20:47One, if of course our continued commitment in whatever we do, the question is always how do we progress Malaysia,
20:55right?
20:55But it's also a commitment or a sign, I would say, of resilience, right?
21:02The fact that we've been here for 80 years through many changes around, if you look at our digital ecosystem
21:08from analog to digital.
21:10I don't know if you remember from dial-up internet, right?
21:14To high-speed internet.
21:15And then we talk about cloud, where Malaysia is competing with all the global cloud players as well, right?
21:23And now into AI, right?
21:26So, that gives us, I think, very strong credentials, right?
21:30To ensure that we continue to support.
21:33So, our aspiration is, and specifically in TM1, right?
21:37To be the sovereign digital solutions provider, not just for Malaysia, but also ASEAN, right?
21:47Because I think it's also important to position Malaysia as a secure hub in this region.
21:54And sovereign is a very important word as well, Nina.
21:58Because sovereign is not just about being located where you are, right?
22:03It's not just a geo-location conversation, but sovereign is about control and choice, right?
22:11The control to be able to make choices that are relevant to what the Malaysian market, businesses, or even the
22:20citizens need.
22:22So, we are really looking forward to this, right?
22:27And TM's commitment, TM1's commitment in this remains very strong.
22:32And I think the question, if you ask about Malaysia's success in AI, would not be about how much AI
22:40is used, right?
22:41But how AI has been able to help us progress as a country.
22:46It's a very proud moment to see how Malaysia has progressed from technology into AI.
22:52And it's very clear from what you have shared with us, Shanti, that to understand or the success in the
23:00era of AI era is actually not by how many technologies that organizations deploy,
23:06but how can we translate all of these technologies into effectively that can turn into productivity, competitiveness, and even long
23:14-term value.
23:14Again, thank you very much, Shanti, and hope to see you again.
23:16Thank you, Nina.
23:17And as Malaysia advances its ambition to become the leading digital and AI economy,
23:24the focus will increase shiftly from adoption to impact and even experimentation to transformation.
23:33And thank you for joining us on Niaga Awak Ni.
23:35Thank you for joining us on Niaga Awak Ni.