Tom Soderstrom:
Yeah, I was interested in the AI act from Europe, so you already touched on that. Are you going to be compliant with that?
David Villaseca:
Yeah, for sure. I think that we have a human-first approach to these huge compliance requirements in Europe. And the idea is that we need to make sure that we are all aligned and we have this people-first approach, and for example, we have a joint data and artificial intelligence governance model. For example, we have built a new data management office that works together with our business colleagues, to make sure that they have their right data owners. I think that this is an important element. And then democratizations of data and artificial intelligence. We're making sure that all our colleagues know how to handle these artificial intelligence solutions, and for example, we have digital skills training to around 2,000 of our colleagues. And then we have built specific skills and we have around 250 citizen data scientists that are business experts, process experts, that now they use our data science tools, artificial intelligence tool. I think that this is something important.
And then for sure you need to be compliant with our artificial Intelligence Act in the European Union. These regulations specific limits on what can be done and cannot be done with artificial intelligence. And beyond that, we have built our own ethical principles. And at the end of the day, we need to reduce the complexity of these governance, and that's why we have built an artificial intelligence governance and observability platform. I think that this is interesting because we have built 100% in-house. And it's focused on governance and this idea of managing the ethical principles in all of our artificial intelligence solutions. On top of that, we need to make sure that we have the right human insight approach, making sure that we are co-creating with our colleagues, with our customers, the right solutions. And at the end of the day, because of our commitment to sustainability, we need to make sure that in all the different artificial intelligence developments, we are optimizing the energy consumptions and reducing the potential emissions. I think that that's something really important on how can we leverage these regulations, and going beyond just the compliance part.
Tom Soderstrom:
My background is I was Jet Propulsion Laboratory's chief technology innovation officer. It’s part of NASA. And you mentioned citizen scientists. Music to my ears. Citizen scientists can do so many things. They can help you, and they're free labor essentially, but they want to participate, they want to do good things. How do they get access? How do you give them access to do good things?
David Villaseca:
I think that we have combined different approaches. First, this is about developing their digital skills and artificial intelligence skills. So there is a lot of training on this part. And then we need to make sure that we are delivering the right tools and solutions. And for example, we have built a generative AI factory where we can develop the right assistance and the right agents to empower and help them. And we have built this platform and this factory on generative AI to make sure that we help them. Reusing the right models, so we are doing in an efficient way.
And again, coming back to the point of sustainability, we are making sure that we are selecting the best LLM solutions. And not just in terms of cost or accuracy, but also in terms of the energy consumption again. And we are empowering, for example with assistance for field workers in the service stations or in the energy parks. And I think that this is really useful for them to get to the right procedures. And we are also helping our engineering teams or even HR. So I think that these are a lot of different opportunities that we are leveraging these citizen data scientists and all the colleagues.
Tom Soderstrom:
Now you mentioned something interesting which is different LLM models. Of course we in AWS don't believe there is one ring to rule them all. In fact, each large language model will improve and innovate and our customers will pick the best one for their use case. In the end, how many language models do you think you'll use?
David Villaseca:
I think that where we are releasing is that, in just couple of years, we have really expanded our capability. And when HAQM shares that they have a new solution and new foundational model as HAQM Nova, we are able in the real time to compare with our different solutions and choose the best one for our needs. So I think that in the future we can have different LLMs. Because right now we have different LLMs for different needs. Sometimes you need maybe something cheaper in terms of a scale also. Sometimes you need to have more advanced models, and I think that at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we are the owners of this decision. I think that that's the best part of, for example, our collaboration in our generative AI platform with HAQM Bedrock solution. I think that that's really useful for us to choose and pick the best LLM model for each application.
Tom Soderstrom:
Yeah. And you will learn a lot and the world will learn from what your experiments are. The other thing we're seeing with generative AI, is it brings back the importance of data. And of course you are having a lot of data. What can you share about the amount of data, the data strategy, the variety of data, and how it affects what you're going to do?
David Villaseca:
I agree that what learning that we have is really to make sure that all your artificial intelligence solutions are built over a strong foundation of data. And in our case in Moeve, we have been working the last six years in our journey to the cloud. And we have developed around 400 data-driven solutions. And we are working across 12 data domains. So for us, we have a lot of experience on this area of that data strategy. And I think that the point is that this is not enough.
And right now, as much as we are using artificial intelligence and getting a good return on their investments, we are increasing our efforts on data gathering. We need more data on our different touch points, in our different assets.
And the right data quality is important. In our case, I was talking previously the data management office take care of the quality of this information. And having the right metadata, and I think that these are some elements that we need to take into account always. It's a combination of data management, and then artificial intelligence development.
Tom Soderstrom:
Good. No, I like the sound of that, it's interesting. Now I heard of Moeve's 2030 Positive Motion strategy. Share a little bit about that. Great sounding initiative.
David Villaseca:
Yeah, I think that the Positive Motion is a vision on the Moeve transformation. We are all working with the same purpose, and I think that we have this strong indicators that we need to make sure that we are charting the business. You were talking about we have sold most of our investments in the upstream business, and we are investing to make sure that we are betting on this biofuel and green hydrogen solutions. I think that that's something meaningful. We are for sure combining the electrical vehicles with different solutions across the world. And for example, green nitrogen is really important for our transport and industrial customers in the B2B world. So I think that at the end of the day we are betting to be the leaders in the southern part of Europe in this sustainable energies. And that's really a purpose for all of us. The digital teams and all our colleagues, we are working with the same vision. I think that that's really powerful, the purpose that we share.
Tom Soderstrom:
The mission is super important. I’ll share a story from NASA. When John F. Kennedy, the president, came to NASA and said, "In 1962, we're going to put a man on the moon. Not because it's easy, because it's hard." He asked a janitor, he said, "What do you do for NASA?" And the janitor could have said, "I helped make it clean for the engineers." He did not. He said, "I'm helping to put a man on the moon." And so the mission statement was very clear. With your mission, what would you say is the mission statement of Moeve?
David Villaseca:
We have a clear vision and we want to make sure that we are empowering the world, different industries, different people, with sustainable energy, to make possible this growth, but at the same time to make it sustainable. I think that that's really a powerful vision for us. And this idea of Positive Motion reinforces the idea that we need to have a positive impact and everything that we are doing, at these times, I think that it's really powerful. And it really help us to attract talent in...
Tom Soderstrom:
Yes.
David Villaseca:
... our digital skills. For example, you imagine, data scientist, it’s tough to get this specialist. And the great thing is that we can attract this talent, because we have this vision, and we can attract also conscious customers that are willing to transform, either B2C, their own mobility in a sustainable way, but also the B2B leaders, that they need to transform their own industries. And in Europe with these new regulations, that empowers the energy transition, we have a lot of conversations with airlines leaders. And they ask us about, “How can we use the sustainable airline fuel,” for example, “That we are producing in your new biofuel plants, to accelerate our business in a sustainable way?” I think that this type of conversation, they're really interesting. And we are co-creating with them, solutions based within data and artificial intelligence. Also not just to empower our own decarbonization journey, but also to help them to empower them in their own decarbonization journey. I think that that's really powerful, and we can expand our Positive Motion vision as a shared vision in the society. I think that this is really powerful.
Tom Soderstrom:
One question that just popped into my head, is as we talk to customers across the world that have to go through this digital transformation, the culture is hard to change. How are you finding that? Has it been difficult?
David Villaseca:
I think that in our case, the first part is the new vision that we have served this new mission in 2022, has been really the first level of the transformation of the culture. So I think that culture is really a tough work. So we have a clear vision. Digital has been also another level, to accelerate this culture. New design thinking, agile, and different methodologies, can help us also to transform our own culture. At the end of the day, we are a company with more than 90 years of history. But at the same time we have this just couple of years of history with this new vision, and it's really a powerful way to really empower all of us together.
Tom Soderstrom:
So the strong mission will help to make this culture transformation. Because a 90-year-old company, it's hard to change, as we're seeing. But congratulations, you're well on your way.
David Villaseca:
We're working on that.
Tom Soderstrom:
And you are the chief digital officer, right?
David Villaseca:
Mm-hmm.
Tom Soderstrom:
So this is your challenge.
David Villaseca:
Yeah, I think that when I was living in Silicon Valley and I received the call of this corporation, I thought that it was really important, because we are making history. And then we call it the twin transition, but it's a triple transition. Twin transition means that we need to accelerate energy transition with digitalization. But at the end of the day, we are also transforming business. I think that this is something that a lot of colleagues in different industries, they're going through this same need. They need transform. And data and artificial intelligence, it's really a source of empowerment for this transformation. I think that even the assistants and the agents are empowering us to share some common thoughts. I think that there are really powerful tools that we are sharing with our colleagues.
Tom Soderstrom:
As I think about the triple transition, I like that, that's new, I have not heard that from anybody else.