StateWays Winter 2024 | Page 7

TRIP REPORT
The Ohio Division of Liquor took home the award for Overall Winner in the 2024 StateWays
Magazine Control State Best Practices Awards , handed out at the end of the conference . The New Hampshire Liqupr Commission won awards for Best Retail Innovation and Best Trade / Licensee Education Program .
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board took home two awards in the 2024 Best Practices Awards : Best Stakeholder Outreach and Best Technology Innovation .
someone in alcohol safety because that employee is just going to leave in three weeks ,” Sammon said . “ Still , we ’ re seeing a better rate [ of staff education ] in the last fiscal year than the two years prior . I think we ’ re coming out of the staffing issue .”
Artificial intelligence was the topic of a discussion hosted by Amit Parulekar , director , global advanced analytics and AI strategy , Brown-Forman . He reiterated several common sayings : “ AI is the new electricity ,” a nod to how the technology will alter all industries , and “ AI is not going to replace you ; someone using AI will replace you .”
Accordingly , it ’ s perhaps relevant to remember the advent of social media in the late 2000s . When Facebook and other dominant sites rose to the forefront , social media-savvy employees likewise rose up the ranks at businesses , at the expense of peers who resisted the new digital tools . AI will likely see a similar staffing shakeout . That ’ s why employee education now is so important .
“ People need to be reskilled ,” Parulekar said . “ There will be some [ employee ] displacement , but mostly people will use AI to augment their skills .”
The purpose of AI , right now , is to reduce time and money required to perform certain tasks . Parulekar mentioned uses in marketing that included generating exotic-location backgrounds rather than flying out there for expensive product photoshoots . Or turning the table in a Thanksgiving-themed photoshoot into a spread with other kinds of foods to target cultures that celebrate with different culinary traditions .
Other uses include writing highly targeted emails , optimizing how systems identify certain objects and patterns , and crunching and extrapolating data . To that last point , Parulekar cautioned the audience to put safety measures in place when working with proprietary data in AI . Do not dump important private company information into any AI program ; understand that what you share with public AI tools thus becomes public itself .
As for ROI , “ right now we ’ re getting into this space not really knowing your overall ROI ,” Parulekar admitted . “ But we do have rough estimates .” This includes general predictions that AI will optimize around 30 % of an employee ’ s workday .
The 2024 Administrators Conference closed with a traditional celebration and light roasting of retiring industry leaders . In Montana , this included Steve Larson , Tim Holden and Mr . Jägermeister himself , Michael Mosley . •
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