Institute of Business Analytics

XAI-as-a-Service (funded by FMER)

User-oriented eXplainability as a lever for AI adoption and AI literacy in SMEs

To secure and expand the competitiveness of German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), an effective concept for the cross-industry adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is needed. With AI as a scalable, user-oriented service ("AI-as-a-Service"), SMEs can generate value from AI independently, even without in-depth AI expertise and with limited resources. However, "AI-as-a-Service" is still rarely used due to a lack of comprehensibility. Comprehensibility can be enabled through the emerging research field of Explainable AI (XAI).

With the help of automatically generated explanations for AI predictions, users can understand the decisions suggested by AI and simultaneously learn a reflective approach to AI (keyword: AI Literacy). The goal of the research project XAIaaS for SMEs is to investigate how new XAI approaches in the sense of "XAI-as-a-Service" can ensure the adoption of AI and close the AI competence gap in SMEs. A cross-industry valid taxonomy for AI comprehensibility as a no-code software solution for SMEs will be created. Based on this, "XAI-as-a-Service" approaches realized in SMEs for representative and transferable use cases will be developed. Finally, the impact of "XAI-as-a-Service" on AI adoption, AI impact, and AI competencies in SMEs will be evaluated.

The project results are expected to provide significant scientific and economic benefits for German SMEs. The taxonomy developed for SMEs from various industries, combined with realized prototypes as demonstrators in two transferable use cases (core competencies and peripheral competencies), will allow cross-industry results transfer for companies, researchers, and students. Based on the project-related involvement of associated application partners and through the expertise of SMEs from various industries from network partnerships of ai.dopt GmbH and Inlinity Technologies GmbH, the results of XAIaaS are expected to be utilized by a large number of SMEs shortly after project completion, thereby enabling the adoption of AI-based decision support and closing the AI competence gap in SMEs.

Cooperation Partners: ai.dopt GmbH, Inlinity Technologies GmbH

Project Period: April 2024 – March 2027

Transfer

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for the period from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2027, and coordinated by ai.dopt GmbH.

The goal of the funding initiative "Research, Development, and Use of Artificial Intelligence Methods in SMEs" by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FMER) is to promote the broader use of innovative ML and other AI methods in SMEs, enabling them to realize new data-driven applications. At the same time, the initiative aims to build relevant know-how within the companies and enhance the AI competence of employees. The XAIaaS for SMEs project contributes to expanding the competitiveness of German SMEs by implementing new data-driven AI applications. The project also helps to close the AI competence gap in SMEs.