CNME Editor Mark Forker secured an exclusive interview with Luis Rodrigues, Chief Product Officer and Regional Head of Lab49, in which he highlighted the issue of biases in LLMs, the need for clear outcomes to be established when adopting AI – and why businesses need to view AI agents as interns.
Luis Rodrigues has been spearheading digital transformation programs across the financial services, telecoms and government sectors during his illustrious career to date.
In June 2024, he was appointed as the Chief Product Officer and Regional Head of Lab49.
Lab49 was established in the United States back in 2002, in an effort to bring Silicon Valley solutions much closer to Wall Street.
Lab49 presents itself as a specialist consultancy that designs and develops bespoke and innovative technology solutions in partnership with key players in financial markets across the world.
Lab49 outlines in its mission statement that it doesn’t sell technology, but instead sells competitive advantage.
As aforementioned above, Rodrigues has enjoyed a hugely distinguished career.
What makes Rodrigues so unique as a business leader stems from the fact that not only does he have a deep technical understanding of technology, but he also has experience in building companies from scratch.
That blend of engineering and entrepreneurship experience and know-how is a potent combination.
Rodrigues has been at Lab49 for just over a year, and he’s been handed the remit of driving their growth across the Middle East region.
However, he was quick to point out that Lab49 has extensive experience in driving digital transformation in the finance space.
“Lab49 was founded in 2002, and the objective of the founders at the time was to bring Silicon Valley thinking and innovation to Wall Street. The company has been at the forefront of digital innovation over the last two decades in the financial services space in the United States. Lab49, part of the ION Group, has played a hands-on role in all stages of digital transformation across the finance space. That has meant different things at different junctures. A few years ago, cloud transformation was the driving force behind the industry; now, everyone is focused on AI. Today, transformation means AI,” said Rodrigues.
A prevalent issue that has surfaced across the board when it comes to AI has been determining concrete use-cases that deliver tangible outcomes.
Pressure from boardroom level has seen many enterprises invest aggressively into AI, but without a clear and coherent strategy, many businesses have put the cart before the horse when it comes to AI, and have failed as a result.
This is a big bugbear for Rodrigues and the lack of knowledge around AI is something that he frequently writes about.
“This is a huge issue, and it is something that I write quite extensively about, and I use my platform on LinkedIn to try and highlight it. Back in the day, everyone was talking about cloud transformation, but many didn’t know what it was. A few years ago, everybody was talking about the Metaverse, with people predicting it was the future, but they didn’t know what it really was. AI is revolutionary, but many people discussing AI don’t understand the technology or its limitations. Many businesses use these buzzwords associated with AI, but they are not able to convert these buzzwords into business value, and that’s a big challenge,” said Rodrigues.
Rodrigues believes Lab49 can help business leaders bridge the AI knowledge gap.
“I’ve been working with AI since the early 00s, and I did a Master’s in AI back then. We’ve got the knowledge and expertise at Lab49 to help organizations in understanding AI. We work closely with businesses to build a strategy tailored to their business model. There is naturally an education process involved; in many ways, it is an education on how you deliver business outcomes. Some businesses are guilty of doing AI just for the sake of it, or because they think they should be doing it, because everyone else is. They need to determine a clear business outcome when investing in AI. Take cloud computing, for example. You don’t move to the cloud because you have to; you move to the cloud because you want to reduce costs and enhance your operational efficiency. It’s the same with AI, you need to invest in AI for very specific use-cases that enable your business to optimise costs, enhance productivity and deliver more value long-term,” said Rodrigues.
There has been a lot written about the need for strong regulations when it comes to AI, with some believing it is a pandora’s box when it comes to ethics and privacy.
The general consensus is that robust frameworks are needed.
Rodrigues believes that the UAE is well-positioned to become a global leader in AI, because of the mindset and vision set out by those at the very top of the government pyramid.
“I attended an AI summit early this year in Madinat Jumeriah, and one of the UAE leaders made a very interesting observation that struck a chord with me. He said that in the UAE, they always want to build the biggest building, or be the best, but they are acutely aware of the fact that they might not always achieve their goals, but what they do as a result of their ambitions is set a vision. And that’s a big advantage this region has compared to where I’m from in Europe. There are more and more companies coming to the UAE to try things, and the investment in the region is increasing all the time, and I think when you talk about putting AI into use-cases, then there is no better place in the world to do it than the UAE,” said Rodrigues.
The UAE is not known for its red-tape and bureaucracy, and that fosters an environment that allows innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish.
However, some critics believe that when it comes to AI having that lax approach when experimenting with AI can lead to the technology not being used ethically, or responsibly.
Rodrigues admitted that in the sphere of financial services regulation is a must, and highlighted the issues pertaining to biases when it comes to AI technology.
“We have to be very careful when using AI in financial services, and regulation is absolutely essential. If you look at all the models we have today, there are biases, because the vast majority of them have been developed in the Western world. There are Chinese models on the marketplace, and we also have a few Arabic models, but it’s fair to say that they are probably not at the same level as some of the most well-known models that are readily available in the market. These models have different languages, and with that, they have a different way of seeing the world. Language is culture, and with that comes biases into the way that particular model operates, and this worries me greatly, and is why regulation is non-negotiable. The issue of bias has to be addressed, and we need to be very careful when developing these systems,” said Rodrigues.
Rodrigues said that when it comes to AI into financial services, accountability and trust is huge.
Are we going to hold an AI Agent responsible if something happens our money?
“If I put money in the bank, I trust that institution to manage my money. They might charge me a fee, but my money won’t disappear. However, the question for technologists is, in an agentic world, what happens if these AI agents invest my money into the wrong thing? If I’m dealing with a human, then I can talk to them directly or even speak to them face-to-face. In an agentic world, we don’t have that” said Rodrigues.
Rodrigues believes financial institutions using AI agents should adopt the same approach as they would with an intern, or a new hire into the organisation.
“We need to be realistic and recognise that agentic AI isn’t magic, and that it’s not going to work perfectly for everything. It works extremely well in contained aspects of the business. What I always tell my clients is, ‘Think of the AI agent as an intern that has just graduated from college. ’ Those coming out of university are typically very sharp, but they don’t have business knowledge, and don’t know the market. What you tend to do is give them an SOP (standard operating procedure) of what to do, and that person will go and execute that task. You wouldn’t tell that same intern, ‘Here are 10 different tools, now go and perform some tasks for me. ’ So, it’s important to consider that when you build an agent, they need to be very contained in a very specific use-case that drives value for the business,” said Rodrigues.
Rodrigues concluded a brilliant conversation by documenting and highlighting some of the factors that differentiate Lab49 from other players in the financial services space, which we know is an ultra-competitive.
Rodrigues started by highlighting his own expertise.
“You’ll hear a lot of people at conferences claiming that they are at the forefront of AI; at the end of the day, unless you work at OpenAI or Google, we’re all just users of AI. Some of us understand it more than others. I understand it because I have a Master’s in it, and have been familiar with the technology for the last 20 years, so I can help more than most. Lab49 is a digitally native financial services company; we specialize in financial services and partner with some of the world’s largest financial institutions. We have clients that we have trusted us for the past 10-15 years. We excel at strategy, and because we know the industry so intrinsically, we understand the need, and then we build the solution to address that need. We are also honest with our clients. If it’s going to take us six months to build something, then we say it’ll take us six months. We don’t overpromise and underdeliver. Digital innovation is in the DNA of the company; we assist our clients, and ultimately, we deliver what our clients need to improve their business. At the end of the day, it’s a results business, and Lab49’s objective is to deliver value for our customers,” said Rodrigues.
