Irzan Raditya on the Future of Industry: AI Has the Potential to Humanize Technology

Humans are complex creatures, if a machine will replace its role, it is definitely not a simple matter. Irzan Raditya is fully aware of this fact, but he still believes that the power of technology can make the human ecosystem better. He, through Kata.ai, enables technology to interact with people in a human-like way, with AI (Artificial Intelligence) conversations.

Early trip

As someone who is privileged to access technology from an early age, Irzan does not waste the opportunity. His father played an important role in the development of his interest in technology. He began to fall in love with drawing since elementary school, Paint became pintu the first gateway in the world of computers. Around the same age, began to grow confidence to learn about IT and become a programmer someday.

His business talent has been seen since the 6th grade. His passion for video games further sharpened his creative side. Using existing devices as well as technological know-how from home, he managed to raise money from making mod games for his friends. When he started getting to know broadband internet, around the end of junior high and early high school, he was able to deepen his interest in music by selling game bots [ragnarok]. Everything he does is purely self-taught, thanks to the existence of the internet.

The journey to building a career in IT began when he was accepted at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin in pursuit of a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. In 2009, German technology companies were not as prominent in the US. Irzan loves drawing, but when it comes to career and business, he decided to major in mobile applications rather than graphic design.

He made the most of his time in Germany by exploring valuable experiences, he became a technical intern at Zalando (a subsidiary of Rocket Internet). This is where he learned that programming was not his best talent, but he had the ability to see things from a different perspective. He found lots of questions without definite answers and finally from that curiosity learned the role/skill in product management, because you work not only from a technical perspective but also from a business and design perspective.

While studying, he managed to start a small project called Amplitweet, a platform for musicians so that their music can be downloaded by uploading tweets and follow. In his first attempt, Irzan felt that being a solo founder required extra work, so he stopped and focused on studying. However, there is always an uneasy feeling of wanting to do something in his free time. Then an idea occurred to me, clothing line for para geek which also features illustrators from Indonesia, this application is called Cape & Fly. The plan is mature but the execution is not perfect. Inappropriate timing and limited opportunities become obstacles. Don't stop there. Around 2012, Instagram started booming but no single platform provides it feed for fashion and shopping. Styyli could be the answer, unfortunately they met the wrong partner and the product fell apart. Maning failed.

Even so, there is always a lesson behind every failure. At that time, he served as Head of Mobile Products at a food delivery platform in Germany, he was responsible for business lines in 11 countries and received reports from about 10 people every day. The boss is someone who deserves to be a role model, young and ambitious, he is also motivated. Irzan's latest experiment in Germany is Diaspora House, a platform that connects people from the same country of origin who want to live together. That time, it was successful, the platform was launched.

From that trip, Irzan learned three things, (1) You can't do it alone. He worked with Reynir [now CMO of Kata.ai] and learned a lot together through Styyli. Additionally, he discovered dedication and good work ethic in Wahyu Wrehasnaya [now COO Kata.ai] when working together through Rumah Diaspora (2) Solve problems in the right place, this is the reason he founded the Diaspora House in Germany. (3) Start with what you have, one of the reasons Styyli failed was because fashion brands are usually used by iOS users, whereas Irzan has an Android background. In other words, it doesn't fit.

Founded a technology company

In 2015, Irzan decided to return to Indonesia and wanted to build his own business. What he said, Indonesia is a country with many issues, and it is a paradise for entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, in Europe, there are not enough problems. As an entrepreneur, it's not as sexy as in Indonesia.

Initially he studied the market in Indonesia. Inspired by a company in the US that provides virtual assistants which are then combined with Indonesian culture which is based on chat and celebrates everything practical. Finally, he decided to found YesBoss - a company offering virtual assistant services with two Co-founders from his previous company, Reynir [Styyli] and Wahyu [Rumah Diaspora].

“I believe that to build a strong co-founder team, there must be trust and commitment as the basic foundation, other things can be learned and will go hand in hand. That's why I'm grateful to be able to stay with my Co-Founder. Irzan said.

YessBoss finally got exposure and managed to get VCs lining up offers term sheet. One of the VCs in the US who focuses on the late stages is even willing to connect them with Managing Partners at 500 Startups. From day one, our team realized that this technology was very manual. It will be difficult to do so scalable without having capabilities in machine learning and NLP, which are part of AI. We also asked Jim Geovedi to be a technical advisor for the NLP algorithm. The company then managed to raise funds and within a year and a half had expanded to the Philippines [by acquiring a similar company, HeyKuya] with a total of 100 employees.

However, everything didn't go as smoothly as planned. There comes a dark episode, time passes and the company still cannot find a sustainable business model.

“It's very difficult to be scalable if you try to be everything to everyone. On the other hand, we have an obligation to investors and to survive. Due to changes in business model, we had to lay off 90% of our employees. "At that time the situation was very difficult," said Irzan.

The rest of the team is working hard to find solutions, and the future of technology is AI. In late 2016, the company officially shifted to a B2B business offering conversational AI technology to corporations called Kata.ai. The first time they collaborated with LINE and Unilever for chatbots. They started with 10 people at the time, and they went back to 100 people. Currently the company has achieved business growth 3 times a year and is still growing.

AI's progress is phenomenal

Irzan said that his meeting with AI was accidental. In Germany, he worked part-time, one of which was as a call center agent. He worked about 4-6 months for an outsourcing company in the UK in receiving complaints and inquiries. He always thought it was just a repetitive job that made people suffer through screaming and stress. Kata.ai, one of them, is here to be the best solution to this kind of problem.

He also mentioned, "AI is actually a tool, not a magic wand. There are always those who see AI as a threat, the other side which is quite extreme sees AI as a savior. I am somewhere in between, and again it all comes back to us, as humans. No matter how sophisticated the technology we have, it will all be in vain if we cannot use it well."

AI will be as phenomenal as the internet and electricity in the next 5-10 years. Every day, we interact with AI-powered applications. Google speech to text, youtube recommendations, and what Kata.ai is doing with conversational AI via chatbots. Any product/company that doesn't use AI will soon be left behind. There are many problems out there that can be solved through AI, especially in Indonesia. However, we have not explored and exposed this matter further enough. AI in healthcare, AI through education, AI in collaboration with government, AI for smart city development. AI has the ability to humanize technology and make it more effective.

From the incredible nature of AI technology, it becomes important to know the worst-case scenarios that could result from this technology that offends the human world. First, when Indonesia was far behind in adopting AI technology, opportunities shifted to other players and they eventually led the market. Second, we are talking about AI causing job losses. Humans have feelings, they always find ways and look for opportunities. In the era of disruption, various new types of jobs are being discovered. There will be no job losses but there will be a shift in tasks. Using conversational AI, the task can be very 'human'. Humans tend to forget and think that AI can learn by itself. Meanwhile, there is a lot of work and human labor requirements behind the incredible work of AI.

The work of artificial intelligence has been captured and channeled through several media. For example, there are many films that highlight the extraordinary works of AI, some of which present the vision that AI can be so powerful, that it can grow greater than humans and their thoughts. Irzan tried to explain from the perspective of AI experts on this issue, Kai Fu Li and Andrew Ng. He said the artificial intelligence used in several films that can exceed human capacity is called AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). However, from the current status quo to a utopian vision, we are still in the process of digesting. Deep learning The existing ones are still inadequate, curation is good but the focus is still focused on one thing. Even though growth occurs exponentially, it still requires cognitive abilities.

Apart from conversational AI and AGI, this technology has quite a broad branch of knowledge. Neurotechnology, for example, is another scientific discipline that Irzan is quite interested in. This is a type of process where machines can read people's minds. This research is still ongoing, but the idea itself is both astonishing and frightening.

– Original article in English, translated by Kristin Siagian