Microdosing the Economy

How can AI bring real value to businesses and the economy overall? This conversation between Daniela Gerd tom Markotten (Deutsche Bahn) and Andreas Liebl (appliedAI), moderated by Alexandra Mousavizadeh (Tortoise Media) offers many insights and examples.

German railway operator Deutsche Bahn now uses artificial intelligence to tackle one of its most difficult jobs: keeping trains run on schedule.

“We established an AI tool a few months ago which recommends the sequence of trains on a real-time basis”, Daniela Gerd tom Markotten says. The system suggests which trains should be prioritized to keep the overall system on time.

Humans still have the final say, the Deutsche Bahn manager emphasizes, but “more than 90 percent of this information is confirmed by the employees”, she notes, leading to a three percent increase in punctuality.

The AI also helps make the most of existing infrastructure. “We free up space, so we can put more trains on this capacity and we don’t need to build new tracks”, Daniela Gerd tom Markotten says.

The challenge Deutsche Bahn now faces is typical of many AI applications, Andreas Liebl observes: scaling the tool, which has proven so valuable in a specific setting, to the overall business.

“I heard many times that at some point in time, the management gets impatient and says, ‘Hey, show me the real cases, not the nice showcases or prototypes. But where is it really driving value?’”

Identifying benefits, and backing them up with data, “is key because you have to prove these benefits to create products”, Liebl adds.

Equally important, both speakers agree, is involving employees as early as possible. “What we figured out is it’s best to start with with a team who’s really eager and curious and wants to do it”, Daniela Gerd tom Markotten says.

Some initial resistance is common, Andreas Liebl notes, “and you need to convince [people] to collaborate with you and maybe to hand out data or expertise.” But once the system is working and yielding positive results, “it creates some trust, and then the acceptance is typically really fast.”