CroAI at the SLO CRO Chamber Conference on AI in Business

The annual conference of the SLO CRO Gospodarska komora (SLO CRO Business Chamber), dedicated to implementing artificial intelligence in business operations, was held at the Infobip premises. The CroAI association was represented at the event by Valentina Zadrija, who, through a discussion with regional experts, dissected the key technical and business challenges companies face when moving AI solutions from the demo project phase into actual production.

Maintenance Challenges and a $1.3 Million Lesson

The primary focus of the panel was on building internal LLM solutions, AI agent orchestration, infrastructure, and reducing the complexity of long-term system maintenance. Valentina Zadrija particularly emphasized the importance of setting strict guardrails and defining clear workflows.

"Without proper guardrails and structured workflows, we are essentially just building prototypes, not production software," Zadrija warned, highlighting the importance of looking at the broader, long-term picture when choosing an AI architecture.

Bloomberg’s financial AI model was cited as a prime example of business and technological risk. An estimated $1.3 million was invested in its development, only for it to be outperformed in terms of performance by the generic GPT-4 just a month after its launch—a clear lesson for companies to carefully weigh whether it is truly worth developing their own models from scratch.

AI is a Technology Like Any Other: The Importance of Leadership and Data Privacy

Panelists Mitja Trampuž, Petar Dučić, and Grega Jerkič agreed that it is crucial for company leadership to understand the real capabilities of artificial intelligence, as well as the need for continuous monitoring of systems post-deployment. It was emphasized that the industry must adopt a mindset where AI is treated as a technology like any other, requiring an engineering discipline that has sometimes been lacking in academic research without practical application.

Special attention was paid to security and privacy:

• Data Retention Within the Company: The discussion covered specific architectures designed to ensure that sensitive business data under no circumstances leaves the company's local environment.

• Infrastructure Trade-offs: How to balance the performance of AI models with strict regulatory and security requirements.

We would like to thank the SLO CRO Gospodarska komora, Infobip, and the organizers and initiators (Saša Muminović, Vesna Vukšinić Zmaić, Aco Momčilović) for launching these important regional discussions, as well as all the panelists and speakers for sharing their invaluable practical experiences.