Pavel Adylin is the CEO of Artezio, a software company serving enterprises with custom IT solutions that involve a broad range of technologies, including Big Data, Analytics/BI and AI. Artezio has also opened an AI laboratory located in one of its development centres in Europe.
Mr Adylin started his IT career as a computer programmer in 1988, launched his first IT start-up in 1993 and has over 20 years of senior management experience in Sales and Marketing.
In this interview, Mr Adylin talks about his company’s mission, its solutions and customers across industries and how Artezio is leveraging disruptive technologies such as AI.
What inspired you to create Artezio?
Artezio was created 19 years ago when digital technology was first being implemented into business and manufacture. It was when the dotcom bubble burst. Crises bring opportunities which can give start to new market growth. In addition, it is always easier to grow with the market. Even at that moment, it was clear that businesses would desperately need new software and process automation. While creating Artezio, our first goal was to meet the market needs for software development. Then, we saw the demand for consulting and promotion of new technology solutions. It was very important for us not to just provide companies with development resources, but also to help our clients find solutions to their problems. A complex approach to development allowed us to expand the competencies of the company significantly, to accumulate tangible technology expertise, and to get knowledge in various areas from healthcare to finance. In turn, it gave us an opportunity to implement large-scale projects.
What is Artezio’s mission?
We are changing business in the era of global digitalization. Our mission is to create new opportunities for enterprises and companies with the help of technology and modern solutions. Today, all companies strive for the use of new tools in order to keep up with competitors or optimize business processes. High demand for IT requires not only quantitative growth but also significant expertise and understanding of modern technological trends. We solve the problems of our customers using our experience and knowledge in various fields. And in each case, we do our best to offer cutting edge solutions that will be up to date in the future. So, in fact, we are involved in building mechanisms for the effective operation of business in new conditions.
Our mission is to create new opportunities for enterprises and companies with the help of technology and modern solutions.
Who are Artezio’s customers and how do you bring value to them? Are most of your customers engaged in a particular industry?
Among our clients are large groups of companies, corporations, financial and international organizations. They work in the healthcare and public sectors, are engaged in the energy industry, sell and deliver goods, and develop software. Some of them help large groups of people to communicate, offer services that are used by millions of people around the world. Healthcare, finance, retail, and transportation are among the industries that are some of the most active to implement IT. But this does not mean that we focus only on them. We have a variety of contacts from different business domains that are very interested in developing effective business systems. The processes of economy digitalization are occurring in all areas of business, so it is difficult to say which industry doesn’t face a need to automate processes. If a business is prospering or wants to succeed in the future, it will use digital technology and will certainly come to us or similar companies that provide services and expertise in software development.
Tell us about Artezio’s products, what problems do they solve? Which product, in your opinion, presents the greatest value for your customers and why?
Our company focuses on providing software development services. Therefore, we have a fairly small set of our own products since we mainly focus on creating custom projects. As I said, we work with different companies and on different projects. The company has achieved great success in the healthcare and financial fields, we have found new approaches to solving the problems of business automation in the field of logistics. At the moment, we are working with about 60 projects of various sizes. As for internal products, our priority is mobile development and the creation of tools that make life easier for developers and help organize the software development process. With mobile applications, we experimented in different directions. We created a logic game called Pixel King. We also developed one of the most popular tools for asset tacking called Cost Track, for both iOS and Android. In addition, we created a time tracking tool called ART-Time and an application for developers in Jira Artezio burndown chart, a framework for optimizing data transfer between applications and much more. Our company uses such a multi-sided approach not necessarily to make money on these products. Creating our own products, we gain experience and experiment with implementing new technologies that are in demand on the market, or will be in demand in the near future and can be used on large and complex projects. The final value of any product or project for the client is the solution to their issues. And the better our solution solves the client’s issues, the better their business works, the more efficient our work is.
Tell us about the Artezio team.
Our company has 7 development offices in Europe and North America. Over 500 people work on projects, including experienced system architects, engineers, and analysts. We have rich expertise in organizing development processes and are constantly building up the experience and knowledge of our specialists in the key areas. For example, we have created our own educational platform Juniors Lab, which helps us train qualified team members and effectively apply the processes of enhancing the knowledge level of employees. It’s safe to say that competition among IT companies makes searching and attracting of new team members pretty difficult. Therefore, Juniors Lab helps us not only solve the issues with the development of expertise within the company but also makes our position on the labor market stable and attractive to customers.
What artificial intelligence technologies do you use the most?
The main difference between the approach while creating the architecture of neural networks and their training is based on the purpose of their further use. Basically, it is not yet possible to create a “one-size-fits-all” solution that will make market predictions for a business and, at the same time, work with pieces of art. Machine learning is an actively developing area. I would not say that the approaches to creating AI are different. First of all, it depends on the goals and objectives of a future solution. Artezio has not only extensive experience in the use of artificial intelligence technologies in various fields but also has its own AI laboratory located in one of the development centers in Europe. The main goal of establishing a laboratory was to create a platform for finding out the most reliable ML technologies and training developers to use new AI methods on different projects. Indeed, the demand for AI is constantly growing and there are requests for projects to automate the processing of big data, there is a need to work with machine vision, NLP and so on. When choosing an AI technology, we rely on the goals of a customer, therefore, we work with all proven technologies that showed their reasonability in the business industry. Meanwhile, the company encourages the team to enhance their knowledge of AI.
When choosing an AI technology, we rely on the goals of a customer, therefore, we work with all proven technologies that showed their reasonability in the business industry.
What developers are you looking for on the market, who is in demand the most now?
It all depends on the projects the company is involved in. But it’s already obvious that there is a great demand for Java and Python specialists on the market. According to our research, Python is popular due to the fact that it is one of the most suitable languages for creating projects with AI. But we can’t say that only these two areas of specialization dominate the labor market now. The development of internet services and start-ups continues, mobile development broadens its horizons, which means there is a demand for programming specialists for iOS and Android as well. Our company now has ambitious goals for developing and expanding the spheres of development. Therefore, we grow and strengthen our positions with experts in various fields of development.
What are the main business challenges you face at Artezio?
We do not consider challenges as problems. The company has certain challenges and tasks that are solved as it grows and develops. The key objective of Artezio is the development of our business in the US market. We have achieved good results in working with American companies and can be proud of the list of our customers and partners in the United States. At the same time, the American market lets Artezio not only grow but also participate in interesting technological projects, which largely determine global trends. Immersion in such projects gives us unique expertise, and this is the main value and competitive advantage for an IT company.
Immersion in such projects gives us unique expertise, and this is the main value and competitive advantage for an IT company.
Which technology trend related to AI will have the greatest impact in your industry in the coming years?
Talking of the popularity of AI in general, in my opinion, the most promising solutions are autopilots, autonomous vehicle control systems that are constantly being improved by many companies. Google began this direction, Tesla Motors continued, and now almost all vehicle manufacturers are developing unmanned control systems for them. AI “question-answer” systems are no less popular. The beginning of such development was laid by IBM in their Watson AI. Today many universities and industry continue the development of this direction. Such systems become helpful and useful companions both as personal assistants (for example, Siri) and as professional experts to resolve complex and critical situations.
In my opinion, the most promising solutions are autopilots, autonomous vehicle control systems that are constantly being improved by many companies
