The new agentic artificial intelligence “plans, executes and learns from outcomes rather than merely responding to instructions.” This evolution “makes it possible to automate complex processes, reduce costs and multiply productivity in areas such as software development, customer service and scientific research,” explained the Director of the Digital Area at the Eurecat technology centre, Lali Soler, during the second day of the AI Congress.
Agentic AI “also poses new challenges in terms of security, governance and ethical alignment, which will be key to its responsible adoption,” in addition to representing “the new generation of artificial intelligence capable of acting autonomously, with its own objectives, continuous reasoning and the ability to interact with real or digital environments,” Lali Soler stated during the CIDAI event, organized by Eurecat with the support of the Government of Catalonia.
From this perspective, the second day of the AI Congress highlighted the level of maturity that artificial intelligence is reaching as a generator of tangible value for companies across all sectors, as reflected in the innovative projects and initiatives presented at the event to improve processes, drive business growth and provide new creative perspectives.
During the congress, Mariona Sanz, Director of Innovation and Business Development at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, presented the BSC AI Factory and the range of services it will deploy to bring supercomputing closer to businesses.
The second day of the congress also highlighted the potential of combining technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence. In this context, the session on intelligent and cognitive robotics, which included representatives from the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics, PAL Robotics and Eurecat, underscored as key aspects the evolution of robots’ ability to learn from people in order to adapt to change, and to interact with their environment through artificial intelligence.
In the words of CIDAI Manager Marco Orellana, during these days of the congress, “we have seen how artificial intelligence is being strongly deployed in fields as diverse as edge computing, agent systems, assistive robotics, applications in healthcare and in business processes,” a fact that “shows that AI is no longer a promise, but a tangible and transformative tool in scientific, industrial and social sectors.”
Artificial intelligence from industry to healthcare
At the AI Congress, success stories were presented that share artificial intelligence as their core technology. These included a project developed at SOME S.A.U to predict defects in metal parts in real time; Daima, an algorithmic solution that uses neural networks to analyse images and identify different material qualities in real time; and waste management through the ZeroVision initiative, which uses advanced computer vision to optimize wastewater treatment, complementing visual inspection to address challenges such as blockages, discharges and sludge flotation.
In the healthcare field, projects such as OneCareAI were showcased. This initiative applies artificial intelligence models to electrocardiogram signals to identify patterns that enable the detection of molecular alterations associated with stroke risk, without the need for invasive genomic analyzes, and uses this information to inform medical decision-making.
Another example was DigiPatICS, which enables the digitalization of pathology samples and improvements in both cellular quantification and tumor pattern detection, as well as the strategy for deploying generative AI in clinical environments at Granollers General Hospital to draft reports and respond to complaints using artificial intelligence. In the pharmaceutical sector, Novartis has developed a causal machine learning tool to quantify the effectiveness of the real impact of promotional efforts by field representatives in drug commercialization.
About the AI Congress
The AI Congress is a CIDAI event organized by Eurecat with the support of the Government of Catalonia, through the Secretariat for Digital Policies of the Department of Business and Labour, within the framework of the Catalonia Artificial Intelligence Strategy promoted by the Government. The congress is sponsored by CaixaBank Tech, Conversia, Infini, Softeng, the Catalan Data Protection Authority (APDCAT) and Laboral Kutxa. It also has the collaboration of Barcelona City Council, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the Computer Vision Center, the i2CAT Foundation and the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia – BarcelonaTech (UPC).
