By Hifsa Raja ISLAMABAD, May 09 (INP-WealthPK): A new tech-based application has been designed by the National Center of Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) to provide solutions to the advertising agencies. Talking to WealthPK, Miss Sundus Khan, Team Leader of the National Center of Artificial Intelligence (AI), said they were working on a number of projects and the current project was development of Augmented Reality Application. Through this application, we are providing a solution to the advertising companies by providing them with a logo. The logo gets scanned on the screen and opens the relevant QR (quick response) code. This is how the advertising companies can reach their relevant target market easily through the relevant QR code,’’ said Sundus. She has also worked at the Virtual Reality (VR) Centre and said different applications were also being developed at the VR Centre. Prof. Dr. Najeed Ahmed Khan, Co-Pi of National Centre of AI NED University, told WealthPK that AI is seen to be a tool for economic growth and an engine for increasing productivity. "The efficiency of doing things is being changed through the AI applications, as you have seen that first the marketing agencies have to find out their target market. Now our application is doing it for them and with much more effectiveness and efficiency. Because our application has improved the decision-making process by analyzing a large amount of data,’’ said Dr. Najeed. He said, "AI is being used by the advertising agencies in the customer services industry; in fact, we are making applications for a wide range of industries such as healthcare, logistics, transport and home maintenance.’’ Talking about Metaverse that their VR Centre is working on, he said it was slow and still not clear. "Metaverse is a bit of AI and a bit of VR. We are trying to introduce the same combination of AI and VR in civil engineering. Through this, we can develop VR Application for House Tour", Najeed continued. He also talked about the virtual tour of the NED University that has been designed by them. Al has the potential to create employment for the people but the condition is that the government has to invest in education, technology and related infrastructure, he said. He then mentioned the Presidential Initiative for Artificial Intelligence and Computing (PIAIC). Programs like PIAIC will reshape Pakistan by revolutionizing education, research and business by adopting latest AI and cutting-edge technologies, he added. "Al has opened the door to new products and services. The services that we are providing through our applications are not possible without AI. Through these AI applications, we have explored new target markets and industries boosting consumer demand and generating new streams of revenue for the country. Al will be dominating the major segments of daily life by 2025. The pandemic has pushed us a step forward in the technology acceptance", said Dr. Najeed. He said they had groundbreaking applications in finance, national security, health care, criminal justice, and transportation in addition to a smart city lab at the NED University. "But there are some challenges like data access, algorithmic bias, AI ethics and transparency, and legal liability for AI decisions. To cater to these challenges, the government should fund AI research and constitute a federal AI advisory committee for policy-making regarding this," he added.