Unlock AI Summit hosted by MTN Converged Solutions – Winston Ritson on preparing for the AI of the future

MTN AI consultant Winston Ritson recently spoke at the Unlock AI Summit – hosted by MTN Converged Solutions.

Ritson is the founder of Ritson.io – a boutique AI consultancy firm focused on helping businesses find their feet in the rapidly-changing AI landscape.

He also consults for MTN Converged Solutions, and is helping the company build and accelerate its Microsoft practise across all of its markets.

Ritson previously served as COO of Liquid C2, where he helped this division of Liquid Intelligent Technologies grow from inception to almost $100 million in revenue.

He has over 20 years of corporate experience in cloud and cybersecurity, business development, and operational excellence.

Conference presentation

At the Unlock AI Summit, Ritson discussed the future of AI and what it holds for businesses.

He explained that we are currently in the era of Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI).

ANI is designed for specific tasks and can only perform those tasks – as it relies on pre-defined roles and cannot learn or adapt to new situations.

For example: an AI-powered image generation tool is limited to image generation. It will not evolve independently to learn how to perform other tasks – like generating audio or video content.

This functionality must be taught to the tool through additional instructions.

In contrast, Ritson believes the future of AI lies in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

While full AGI does not exist yet, it will be able to perform a wide range of tasks and learn and adapt to new situations – just like a human can.

Ritson stressed that AGI will be an exponential improvement on ANI – and businesses must prepare now for the advancements it will bring in the future.

“While full AGI remains on the horizon, organisations that master today’s AI foundations will be best positioned for tomorrow’s breakthroughs,” said Ritson.

He highlighted four steps that businesses must take today to prepare for the future of AI:

1. Start with proven AI applications in your core business.
2. Build expertise across neural networks, multimodal systems, and emerging capabilities.
3. Monitor computational resources and efficiency.
4. Develop an ethical framework for AI advancement.