Alma Growth Day is dedicated for sharing knowledge across the company

Alma’s third-ever Growth Day took place in October 2023. Growth Days are regular internal training events dedicated to learning from peers. Hundreds of Alma employees from over 10 countries came together online to learn from their colleagues.

This year our Growth Day theme was AI. The purpose of the day was to inspire employees to experiment with AI, offer valuable tips and practical tools for everyday work. At the same time the goal was to show concrete examples of how AI is utilized both in service development and in daily lives of individual employees or teams.

— Generative AI is like the world wide web moment for modern times. The potential in the technology is huge and we’re just getting started. It is understandable that some might even feel a little bit scared due to the rapid development of generative AI such as ChatGPT. Luckily we all have a chance to use the technology and benefit from it in our work, says Antti Koivisto, CTO, Alma Media.

— Our goal at Alma is to make sure that all employees stay informed with the latest technologies that impact our business. No one is expected to suddenly learn programming skills, but rather understand the potential benefits AI can bring to business as well as individual’s work. It’s a great time for innovation, continues Koivisto.

It’s understandable that AI awakens fears, but at Alma we want to focus on the potential and embrace this technology, while still recognizing the potential risks for example from legal and privacy perspective.

— In a way AI chat tools are like the greatest colleague ever: they tirelessly answer all your questions. We definitely encourage all employees to experiment with AI. To help with that we have provided everyone with safe tools and guidelines to get started, continues Koivisto.

Hundred products and brands to experiment with

At Alma successful use cases of AI include for example recommendations, pricing estimations, subscription-related predictions, and audience segmentation, to mention a few.

Alma has dozens of digital products and services, which are developed internally. Those offer great platforms for testing AI. Alma’s portfolio includes marketplaces in housing, automotive and recruitment industries as well as media platforms such as Iltalehti, Kauppalehti and Talouselämä.

Alma’s technology community i.e. employees working in tech roles, include over 350 people. Teams in Alma have –“You build it, You run it” DevOps culture where Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery plays an important role.

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