Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Its Everyday Applications

On 6 May 2025 (Tuesday) We were invited to speak at the Kursus Kecerdasan Buatan (AI) held at Dewan Perdana 1, Kompleks Perdanasiswa Blok D, Universiti Malaya. The full-day programme (09:00–16:00) brought together university officers and support staff with the aim of demystifying AI and showing practical ways to use it safely and productively in daily work.

Course objectives
The training was designed to give participants clear, usable knowledge about:

• the basic concepts behind artificial intelligence and recent developments in the field;

• practical applications of AI across administrative, teaching and outreach tasks; and

• hands-on skills and safeguards to increase efficiency while protecting privacy and institutional integrity.

What we covered (highlights)

• Foundations: plain-English explanation of AI, machine learning and generative models — what they can do and what they cannot.

• Everyday use cases: automating routine tasks (meeting minutes, report drafting, data extraction), search and knowledge retrieval across institutional documents, and basic content generation for communications.

• Practical demonstrations: live demos showing how simple prompts and lightweight automations can save time and reduce repetitive work.

• Risks & guardrails: data privacy, accuracy concerns, ethical use, and how to spot and mitigate biased or misleading outputs.

• Skill building: quick exercises to practise prompt phrasing, evaluating AI outputs and deciding when human review is essential.

• Next steps for units: simple pilot suggestions and low-risk starting points that teams can adopt immediately.

Outcomes & takeaways
Participants left with a practical understanding of where AI can add real value — and where caution is required.