Dell Technologies: Making AI Accessible

Anita Joseph caught up with Sam Grocott, Senior Vice-President, Business Unit Marketing at Dell Technologies, to learn more about Dell’s product offerings and the integration of AI into its product portfolio.

Please give us an overview of Dell’s latest product offerings or portfolio.

At Dell Technologies, our recent focus has been on AI solutions, addressing key components like compute, storage, high-speed networking, extending up to client workstations. We’re not only bundling these solutions but also making them exceptionally easy to deploy. Our emphasis is on use cases and workloads, ensuring organisations can seamlessly integrate AI into their operations. This year marks the shift from acquiring hardware to identifying and replicating specific use cases that offer tangible benefits, addressing the industry-wide challenge of where to begin with AI.

What challenges or pain points do you encounter while innovating or introducing new products to the market?

The primary challenge we find when engaging with customers is their uncertainty about where to start with AI. While the technology is readily available, organisations struggle to identify specific use cases aligned with their unique needs and competitive advantages. Leveraging data becomes crucial to making AI output specific, differentiated, and aligned with organisational goals. We focus on data management and hygiene to ensure that organisations can harness the power of AI in a way that is highly effective and proprietary to their needs.

How is Dell integrating the challenges and opportunities of Generative AI into its product offerings?

We’re integrating all hardware components – compute, storage, networking – and simplifying the deployment process for generative AI. Our goal is to provide ease of consultation on where and how to use it securely, ensuring privacy and governance. Dell’s services, including our professional services and collaboration with channel partners and system integrators, work cohesively to make on-premises generative AI deployment as seamless as public cloud usage, with the added benefit of working with secure governance and proprietary data.

Let’s discuss the future of work, particularly in the context of the evolving hybrid and remote work landscape. How is Dell adapting its product range to meet the changing demands?

We’ve recently unveiled the new generation of our PC and laptop line, making a fundamental change to the keyboard layout for the first time in 30 years. The addition of the co-pilot button streamlines access to generative AI, marking a significant integration of AI into everyday tasks. Recognising that PCs remain the primary tool for the hybrid workforce, this integration allows users to leverage generative AI with a simple click. It’s just the beginning of our journey to accelerate AI into every task, making processes more efficient and enhancing productivity.

Dell is focused on addressing the challenges of AI adoption, ensuring seamless integration into organisations’ unique needs and contributing to the evolution of the hybrid and remote work landscape through innovative product offerings.