Playground can start you on your AI journey
AI deployment is accelerating on many fronts. But if you’re still struggling to embrace the technology, DSS Europe, and the AI Playground in particular, provide an environment to discover current use cases, build a community, and exchange information.
The AI Playground at DSS Europe is a showcase of real-world use cases of AI in digital signage, arranged in four zones: Content Creation, Campaign Optimization, Monitoring & Reliability, and Edge Agents & Infrastructure. Each zone comprises solutions from partners well known in the digital signage industry, such as Intuiface, SignageLive, SignageOS and BrightSign.
The AI Playground is hosted by Josef Schneider, founder of Kirchberg Capital & Services and chair of the YPO Retail Network. As a curtain-raiser, he presented a session in the DS Tech Forum entitled AI from Concept to Implementation.
He began by discussing some news stories from the first three weeks of May that spoke to the increasing significance of AI across many sectors: Microsoft laying off 3% of its workforce, Duolingo replacing all contractors with AI, and UBS deploying AI analyst clones. “You know that when an Swiss bank does this, it’s serious,” he observed.
AI is also enabling startups to develop quickly and generate large turnovers without employing large numbers of people, he stated. “This offers a lot of new service opportunities. Who will deploy them? Will it be you, or will it be an incumbent?”
In his role with the YPO Retail Network, Schneider recently ran a 10-week programme for 165 companies of varying sizes in the retail sector. One significant outcome was that every company made an instant saving of at least $50,000. “There was no company that didn’t have a saving after just three weeks.” The areas in which the programme had most impact for the participants were sales and engagement, marketing content, and operational efficiency – all significant for digital signage.
Schneider also ran through different elements of agentic AI: autonomous intelligence; mutli-chain processing with managed content protocols;, context-aware triggers; and intent graph architecture, which takes action without explicit commands. “LDSK has a nice example [of intent graph architecture] on the Playground, Those still dragging manual timelines will simply be gone – to make it very blunt.”
His advice to DSS Europe delegates? “Ask yourself questions. This is the most critical part with AI. Ask questions, go into iteration – don’t think you’ll get it 100% right, but work on an iterative basis. The Playground should be your map. My favourite quote is: ‘AI won’t replace you – but someone using AI will.’”
