“The intention is to give tools to these decision-makers to better use this technology, which already exists, in the best possible way, with smarter and more profitable recommendations,” Microsoft’s chief technology officer told Lusa.

On the sidelines of the signing of the protocol, Manuel Dias said that the choice of the University of Algarve is due to the existence in the region of a tourist and restaurant sector where AI technology can be applied to “help in the economic recovery, helping decision-makers to launch services to capture customers and create margin, increasing their knowledge of the customer.

From a practical point of view, he exemplified with what he called the “integrated and intelligent journey of a tourist” where from the moment he makes a reservation until he arrives in the city he can have the entire tourist offer “personalised” through “recommendation algorithms, advanced mobility patterns or the characteristics of that tourist”.

The dean of UAlg told Lusa that this “is not a course for computer scientists”, but for “decision makers” that will have the first contact with solutions that already exist in the market and that can serve them to “solve certain problems”, giving them tools that will “enable to strengthen the competitiveness of their companies by increasing their created value”.