Post by Sandra Siehler

🤖 CAS in Game Changer AI – Study Trip to Berlin 🤖 AI is everywhere, but clarity on how to apply it in business is not. I am looking forward to the next CAS module ‘AI Strategy & Business Transformation’ at the University of Zurich Executive Education Informatics school starting on Thursday, while reflecting on the study trip to Berlin/ Germany last month. In Berlin, we visited unique AI innovation ecosystems: MotionLab, the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), and had a full-day workshop at Merantix to learn the AI Canvas, an adaptation of the Business Canvas and for AI transformation projects. The AI Canvas was developed by Merantix in collaboration with the University of St.Gallen in Switzerland. Selected key learnings: 🎯 AI value comes from real business impact, not hype: AI should be value-driven and solve a concrete business problem. Not every process needs AI. Sometimes simpler automation delivers better ROI. 🎯 Data quality is the true bottleneck in AI projects: 60% of efforts go into cleaning and organizing data, far outweighing time spent on model building. High-quality data are often more critical than selecting or fine-tuning AI models. 🎯 AI implementation fails more due to organizational issues than technical limitations: Success requires early user involvement, clear ownership, and alignment with business processes. Building an AI-first culture is as important as the technology itself. 🎯 AI is moving into a “deployment era” focused on commercialization and real-world integration: This includes smaller, specialized models, low-code platforms, and AI agents that increasingly assist and may eventually act autonomously. The shift from prompt engineering to context engineering highlights the growing importance of embedding AI deeply into workflows and systems. 🎯 Ecosystems are becoming key enablers of rapid AI and deep-tech innovation: Shared infrastructure and expertise, investor networks, and Startup co-innovation significantly speed up development and market entry. Thank you Patrick Meyer for the phantastic organization, and thank you to all the presenters and lecturers for sharing information and their learnings: Alina Govoni and Paulina Weiss from the Merantix AI Campus Strategy group, Henrik Volkmann from Libra/ Wolters Kluwers, Fridtjof Gustavs, co-founder of MotionLab.Berlin, Ishan Bhat and Marc-Lorenz Döhmer from Start-Up companies of the MotionLab ecosystem, and Michael Lesch, Business Development Partner of the City of Berlin Maria Anselmi, Jelena Brdar, Manuel Eicher, Alexander Fürer, Oscar Lopez Tejido, Faizal N., Andreea Schiopu, Dr. Andreas Tschuor, David Vuckovic, Gerd Winandi-Martin #ExecutiveEducationUniversityofZürich #UniversityofZurich #CAS #GameChangerAI #GenerativeAI #AILeadership #DigitalTransformation #Merantix #AICanvas #ai_berlin.hub #MotionLabBerlin #CambridgeInnovationCenter