Innovation To Implementation With AI, Blockchain, & Metaverse: Dinis Guarda Interviews Dr. Annette Doms, CEO & Director Of Future Business Of ICAA

In the latest episode of the Dinis Guarda Podcast, Dr. Annette Doms, CEO & Director of Future Business at ICAA, discusses how AI and advanced tech are reshaping industries, and the imperatives of bridging the education and industry application with creativity and collaboration. She emphasises the need for responsible AI that balances innovation with ethical regulation for societal transformation. The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, Wisdomia.ai, and Sportsabc.org.

Dr. Annette Doms is a Tech Evangelist, entrepreneur, Future Business Expert, In-Company Trainer, Web3 Expert, academic, and Public Speaker, digital transformation strategist. She is the CEO and Director of Future Business at ICAA Strategists GmbH, a consulting firm that helps businesses transform using technologies like Web3, AI, and Blockchain.

During the interview with Dinis Guarda, Dr. Annette Doms discusses the transformative potential of AI, blockchain, and XR when combined:

“If you consume [AI, blockchain, and XR] together, you create a new beverage that people are willing to spend a lot of money for. Each of these technologies is revolutionary on its own, but together, they are transformative.

We are moving towards what I call the programmable reality, a world where AI provides intelligence, blockchain ensures trust and ownership, and XR delivers immersive experiences.

AI is already there; it's easy to access and relevant. Metaverse is not gone—it’s still there, especially in the industrial field, education, and more. Blockchain is an efficient technology; it creates trust and credibility.

We will go far beyond Zoom. Next time, we will meet in the metaverse, where we can collaborate with teams, work on whiteboards, and be guided by AI that translates languages and cultural nuances.

Blockchain's role in digital ownership

Dr. Annette Doms discusses the transformative role of blockchain in redefining digital ownership:

"When we talk about blockchain, so many initially think about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And this is like reducing the entire internet to just email.

Bitcoin indeed was the first blockchain to be developed, and it was created as a peer-to-peer payment system. But the true revolution lies in blockchain's ability to decentralise trust. This is possible through programmable smart contracts. A smart contract is a digital agreement that is automatically executed when certain conditions are met.

Suddenly, we don't need banks or lawyers or notaries to verify agreements. That’s not just efficiency. This is the real empowerment.

Let's take NFTs as an example. That caused a massive hype in 2021 when people suddenly spent millions of dollars on these cartoon apes called the board apes. But behind this hype lies a revolutionary concept. The combination of a digital file that can be anything – audio, video, an image – and this combination with smart contracts to create a unique file.

An NFT represents a unique asset and a unique file, and making it so, a digital file plus a smart contract is becoming a non-fungible token. That really creates verifiable digital ownership in a world where digital assets were easy to copy and therefore practically worthless.

This principle is already transforming education. Imagine diplomas and certifications stored immutably on a blockchain. There is no more bureaucracy or forgery, and students can really own their assets personally in their personal wallet. 

In finance, blockchain enables self-executed contracts or loans, decentralised insurance, and access to capital for those traditionally excluded.

We are redefining ownership in the digital age. For the first time, we can really own bits and bytes like books and houses. This is not just a tech upgrade; this is a civilisation shift."

Responsible AI: Balancing innovation & regulation

Dr. Annette Doms discusses the importance of responsible AI, emphasising the need for transparency, human-centric design, and continuous monitoring:

"Responsible AI is not about theoretical ethical debates. It's really about how we build, how we deploy and govern AI on the ground. We need to be radically honest about what AI can do and what it can't.

We are still talking about weak AI. We are not at the point where we have strong AI with human-like general intelligence. These are mathematical systems or models shaped by human-made data, with all biases and limitations that were made by human-made data.

Responsible AI doesn't aim to replace automation. It supports and enhances human decision-making, especially across areas like lives, rights, or livelihoods when they are at stake.

We must ensure humans stay accountable for the outcome. Technology is not the problem; it's about people and how they treat AI.

Humans are not always good, especially when it comes to power and money, and there is a lot of misuse and fakeness outside.

We don’t have to forget that there are still a lot of hallucinations. It’s a black box, and these are problems we are dealing with. We need continuous monitoring and governments that adapt to the technology. One-time audits don’t cut it.

Germany has a deep-rooted tradition of technology impact assessment, which gives us a unique advantage. We are culturally wired to ask the right questions from the beginning.

Responsible AI isn't a drag on innovation. It's a driver of it. Systems built with care, context, and human value at the core turn out to be more robust, trusted, and ultimately more successful."

The winners in AI won’t be the fastest movers. They will be the ones who move with the deepest integration of technology, humanity, and purpose."
 

AI, creativity, and industry transformation

Dr. Annette Doms reflects on the intersection of AI and human creativity:

"The common narrative around AI and creativity actually focuses on whether machines will replace human artists or replace jobs. But at the end, like if you look back, history teaches us all about industrialisation, so people already feared for their jobs. But in the end, there were more jobs than before, and the same happens now with AI.

What we're witnessing right now is not replacement but augmentation and an expansion of what's possible when human intention and machine capabilities come together. 

In art, AI is becoming a generative partner. Artists like Rafik Anadol don't use AI for efficiency, they collaborate with AI to generate new ethics in art that could not have been imagined before AI. We are seeing entirely new visual languages in art, representing new artistic frontiers.

Most of the artists collaborate with AI and need it. They train it with their own works or ask questions that couldn’t be answered otherwise. At the end, it’s all about the prompt. If I were to create an artwork, it would not be the same as an artist formulating a prompt for their artwork.

In education, AI goes far beyond personalisation. It’s about equity and access. AI has the potential to reshape who gets to access services and how, by adapting to different learning content, styles, and cultural contexts.

In finance, AI is not just about automation, it’s about innovation. AI allows more nuanced risk modelling, more personalised financial products, and better access to services for previously underserved communities.

Organisations that will thrive won’t simply deploy AI to optimise. They will use it to reimagine their value to society.

The real divide won’t be between adopters and non-adopters. It will be between those who use AI to reinforce old models and those who use it to create entirely new forms of value.

The next decade will not be defined just by artificial intelligence itself but by the quality of human imagination in applying these tools. Humans will be more important in the future than technology. I’m pretty convinced of that."