In association with Stryve
Irish companies are rushing to adopt AI tools such as Copilot and Claude amid a lot of industry hype, according to Gunter Bayer, chief information officer and co-founder of Stryve. The technology expert says the bigger opportunity for SMEs may be much more mundane.
“AI isn’t coming for your job,” he says. “It may be coming for the six hours of tedious admin you do every week. The next phase of AI adoption isn’t about giving everyone an AI chatbot. It’s about finding the boring, repetitive, expensive processes that nobody wants to do and automating them.”
Bayer’s view is that businesses should address the “low-hanging fruit” first by eliminating repetitive work, connecting fragmented systems and giving employees their time back to focus on higher-value responsibilities.
“There are huge opportunities, particularly when AI is combined with automation,” he continues.
One recurring business task that frequently emerges from Stryve’s research is completing payroll. “Payroll is a critical task in any business. But when AI is used the right way, payroll is one place where companies can save a lot of time.” Bayer says.
For some businesses, processing payroll files into their accounting system takes up to one full day. Bayer’s team built an automation tool that ingests and processes the information without error.
“Once the payroll journals have been uploaded, human oversight is usually needed to analyse them and give feedback, for example, holiday, overtime or emergency tax. But that is just the automation side. As part of our platform, we layer AI on top of the automated payroll piece, give it rules in the broader context, and add critical guardrails so AI can form an opinion based on the numbers and the data, but within a set of rules and parameters.”
As a result, employees can spend less time on administrative processing and focus on high-value work such as building customer relationships.
Another customer case study involves tender processing. The AI platform is given the tender documentation, relevant context and examples of previously successful tenders. It can then build the tender while checking requirements against relevant legislation and regulations. The process has significantly reduced the time required to produce a tender draft, which the team can then tailor and complete.
A further challenge is that businesses increasingly operate across multiple technology systems. Business data can exist in systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, QuickBooks, finance applications, ERP systems, file servers, file shares, and FTP sites. This creates disconnected data and makes it difficult to automate processes across the different systems.
Stryve launches Supercharge AI and automation platform
Stryve set up a dedicated AI and automation department this year. Led by Bayer and senior AI & automation architect Bojan Krstic, it launched a new AI and automation tool called Stryve Supercharger, a platform designed to help scaling businesses deliver AI-driven solutions.
Stryve’s Supercharger addresses this problem by connecting disparate systems, moving data, automating repetitive processes, and applying AI where it adds value.
The solution is deliberately AI-agnostic. Rather than locking customers into one AI provider, the framework can leverage different AI services depending on their requirements.
Bayer explains: “Many Stryve customers use Microsoft. Copilot lives within that environment. We can leverage Copilot, but with our Supercharger platform we can also access data that lives within other technology systems.”
In the payroll example, Stryve’s Supercharger connects data from a company’s HR platforms with accounting software and finance applications to seamlessly complete payroll from end to end.
“The important thing is not to adopt AI simply for the sake of adopting it. Businesses need to understand where it can genuinely add value, where automation may be the better solution, and how their data and systems need to work together.
Our job in Stryve is to guide and protect our clients as they navigate this new AI-driven world, identify the right opportunities and make sure they are using these technologies practically and responsibly.”
A new phase shaped by AI and Automation
Irish businesses have had to navigate many IT challenges, including GDPR, cyber threats, NIS2 and DORA. Having invested significantly in digital transformation, SMEs are now entering a new phase, with AI and automation set to reshape how they operate.
Enterprise Ireland (EI) is encouraging SMEs to identify practical ways to adopt artificial intelligence through its €5,000 AI and digitalisation grant. As an approved supplier, Stryve’s team assesses where an EI client business is positioned, whether it is AI-compatible, and whether its data and systems are in a position to adopt the technology. Stryve gives them a clear roadmap for responsible AI adoption. The AI automation department and Supercharger platform are available to help implement the opportunities identified through the process.
Stryve was founded in 2019 to offer Irish companies combined digital and cyber security services before the cyber threat evolution we have witnessed in the first half of the decade.
The innovative company has grown to a team of more than 70 people with offices in Dublin, Kilkenny and Galway. Stryve is headquartered in Kildare, where its newly launched AI and Automation Hub is based in the Merits Building in Naas.
For Bayer, the opportunity is clear: “What the customer gets is that we can give them their time back”.
For more on Stryve’s services click here.
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