Discovery
As a 2023 high school graduate, my four years before college were unforgettable, to say the least. During my freshman year, I, along with millions of students across the nation, was sent home early that fateful March due to a global pandemic sweeping across the world. As impactful as COVID-19 was, its long-term effects were limited, especially in comparison to the explosion in personal use of artificial intelligence that occurred in late 2022. I wasn’t sure what to expect when my friend called me over to his laptop and told me he had a trick to finish his English paper in seconds. But when I saw him copy and paste the rubric into what looked like a customer support chat box, the outcome genuinely shocked me. This moment marked the greatest discovery since sliced bread entered my life, and it has been a part of my daily life ever since.
AI: The TA with 24/7 Office Hours
Ever since high school, artificial intelligence has been my go-to tutor for understanding topics that I might not have immediately grasped in class. By using it this way, I was able to stay ahead of the curriculum without letting the LLM do all the work for me, allowing me to learn throughout the process. This strategy continued into my college years, as I am currently a software engineering student at Drexel University. There has been a wide array of topics that don’t immediately make sense (especially data structures and algorithms, but that’s a story for another day). Regardless, by utilizing artificial intelligence, I gained a much deeper understanding of concepts that would have otherwise been impossible to grasp, and it saved me from losing my sanity and GPA.
From Tutor to Coworker
I am currently on a co-op in my second year of studying software engineering at Drexel, which has opened up new opportunities to utilize artificial intelligence. Right before I sat down to write this blog, I was tasked with deploying an extension from the Mac App Store onto company devices via Microsoft Intune and Apple Business Manager. The only issue was that I had never used either of these platforms, and suddenly, I was granted administrator rights on both with a mission to complete. Thankfully, the company I work for has licenses to Microsoft CoPilot, and since Intune is a Microsoft-based product, completing this task was just a few prompts away. Use cases like these, where I utilize the tool to act as an assistant or more knowledgeable co-worker, make me feel confident in the information I am gathering and executing processes.
Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg
Since I am still in the early stages of my software engineering journey, I know that I’m barely scratching the surface of what is possible with artificial intelligence. As I continue the transition from a curious student to a full-fledged software engineer, my relationship with artificial intelligence evolves as rapidly as the technology does. Seeing companies like Databricks pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with this technology through innovations such as Agentic AI systems, fraud and crime detection, real-time consumer data collection, and much more across various industries truly opens my eyes to the world we live in today. During my internship with Syngentic, this reality has become even clearer to me from a first-hand perspective. It’s evident that the lack of actionable intelligence leads to time-consuming document processing, fragmented enterprise knowledge, inflexible rules-based systems, and missed opportunities due to delayed insights. So the pressing question now is, how can the tool that I once used to summarize William Shakespeare stories help address these real-world problems at scale?
The Syngentic Advantage
The answer in this case is Syngentic, along with its innovative use of artificial intelligence to help enterprises design, deploy, and scale custom AI and LLM (Large Language Model) applications using the Databricks MosaicML platform and integrated SAP data workflows. With these tools, Syngentic can deploy LLM Chat Assistants, Document Intelligence & Summarization, Predictive Workflows, and LLMOps with Databricks. In the industry, these tools are applicable to government, healthcare, and enterprise operations to streamline a wide variety of processes and optimize workflows.
The Future is Now
Looking back, it’s wild to me that a pandemic, a homework-solving machine, and my drive for knowledge have shaped how I learn, work, and think. What started as a fun little discovery that let me spend more time playing video games and less on calculus has evolved into something much greater. Something that I can count on as a partner in my daily endeavors. Something that I look forward to building the future with.
