FutureStarter with Passion
René Deist considers himself to be a FutureStarter: The Senior Vice President International Digitalization drives digitalization forward and makes sure ZF is fit for the future. He has a clear vision of how value creation can be increased: by introducing modern processes and utilizing the potential of generative artificial intelligence.
Being fascinated by the future and its possibilities, and not being able to wait for it – that's what FutureStarter at ZF is all about. This also applies to René Deist: the 55-year-old qualified mathematician, computer scientist and economist has made a name for himself worldwide over many years in the areas of business process improvement and digital transformation. Deist has been at ZF since 2020 and he is sure that we are currently witnessing how the future happens: “Perhaps it will only be in a few years that we will become aware of how much generative artificial intelligence has changed our lives and especially our ways of working and collaborating,” he said when the US software company OpenAI first presented its chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022.
Clear vision of digitalization: FutureStarter René Deist.
Artificial Intelligence: Utopias Become Possible
He compares the importance of this technology with the introduction of the Internet, which has actively changed the working and everyday lives of many people within three decades. “Dialogues take place everywhere today,” he explains. “Sensors talk to control units, drivers talk to workshop technicians, smartphone motion sensors talk to navigation systems. But control devices speak a different language than drivers or navigation systems. Generative artificial intelligence creates system bridges so that different languages can be understood by all participants. This opens up possibilities that we can hardly imagine today.” So it is by no means utopian that in the future a vehicle will describe to its owner or the workshop master in detail and in words where there is a problem - just an example of the kind of dialogue partners which are likely to become reality in the near future.
The close collaboration with Microsoft, one of the main financiers of OpenAI, is paying off for ZF when it comes to having a front row seat to this development. “We are currently developing a system for which we use existing AI applications by linking them to our databases in the cloud,” says René Deist.
The transformations manager embraces digitalization both internally and externally.
The Future is Beginning – at Breathtaking Speed
The speed at which the change is taking place is also breathtaking for the experienced CIO and transformation manager: “Change isn't happening in years, but in months. We already have pilot projects where software developers use Copilots to automate writing code. We are also implementing help bots for even more efficient solutions to IT problems and training sales managers to create their meeting minutes of customer visits or their customer presentations with the support of AI,” he describes. In his opinion, a lot will also change in companies: “The central IT will be able to deal even better with highly complex issues, because one of their roles today is often that of the translator between the user and the system. This task will be immensely simplified in the future by generative AI systems.”
What is required for this: the willingness of each individual to change, without which digitalization is inconceivable. A phenomenon that René Deist constantly encounters in his task of digitizing ZF: “ZF has grown enormously in recent years through acquisitions. Some of the process and system landscapes of the original companies still exist. However, digitalization thrives on the group-wide standardization of processes, which efficiently coordinates work across the production and delivery of products for our customers. My credo is: the easier we make working together, the faster and more efficient ZF will be and the higher the satisfaction of its employees will be. For many employees, this means getting involved in the new processes and continuing their education.” For him, the goal is of existential importance: “We live in an increasingly complex, data-driven world. This affects product creation, the entire flow of values and goods including production and delivery - and of course corporate management. Only those who have their processes under control can look forward to the future positively - and feel like a FutureStarter." A future in which people will by no means become superfluous: "It's about relieving people of strenuous, routine activities while maintaining their role as a responsible authority.”
More Chances for Nerds
For René Deist, digitalization has another impact: “IT used to be a topic in many companies that was rather intangible and viewed as a ‘must’ – a special discipline for computer geeks. Today, IT is in vogue because it has advanced from a tool to a source of value creation. This is a development that, as a mathematician and computer scientist, is of course not unpleasant to me,” he laughs.
It’s good to laugh: René Deist sees opportunities in AI above all.
His life could have taken a completely different course: in the early 1980s, the Bochum native toured Germany as a musician and even considered the idea of giving up his studies to pursue music. Despite choosing mathematics, he has remained loyal to music, and he is also fascinated by algorithms: “Today, generative AI needs just one snippet of nine seconds to simulate a voice in a deceptively realistic manner. That's why you can now listen to Kurt Cobain singing 'Black Hole Sun' by Soundgarden on YouTube without him ever having recorded the song.”
There's no question: René Deist is fascinated by the possibilities that the future holds.
