Different by design. Software over slides. Strategize, ship, and scale. These are all ways we describe Launch by NTT DATA, but cool catchphrases are meaningless without an innovative spirit behind them. 

That spirit extends to both our clients and our employees. After all, our mission to make enterprises faster, stronger, and better depends on our ability to empower our developers. Developers who are frustrated to be stuck with Java 8 when Java 20 just hit the market, we hear you. We feel your pain on the overloaded plates and manual minutiae too.

That’s why Launch by NTT DATA has been working hard behind the scenes to get ahead of a very big, fast-moving curve — generative AI. Yes, the conversations are everywhere, but the conversations we’ve had center on a few key points:

• How can we leverage generative AI to reduce mundane tasks so our developers can get to more meaningful work faster?
• How do we protect our clients’ intellectual property in a generative AI world?
• How do we simply not swap one mundane task for another? Could generative AI save time in some areas but cost our developers more time in others?

The answer to all of those questions comes in the form of a nice little combo platter. 

The right “recipe” of generative AI, Open APIs, and good ol’ fashioned domain expertise gives our clients newer, faster solutions — with safeguards firmly in place — and gives our developers a better way to work every single day.

The benefits of open APIs aren’t new. It is a treasure trove of templates with defined specifications that are already unit tested. Considering the average developer can spend as much as 50% of their workday unit testing, it’s an absolute must-have to eliminate a number of menial tasks.

The same can’t be said for generative AI, though. Right now, tools like ChatGPT are anything but idempotent. Maybe they will be one day, but today isn’t it. As a result, using generative AI for even the most basic of boilerplate code requires comprehensive unit testing. In other words, you’re swapping out one menial task for another.

And, of course, machines can’t do everything. There comes a point in every project where a developer’s domain expertise means the difference between success and failure. That’s why we set such a high bar for the developers we hire. 

So how do you balance all three while safeguarding your clients’ intellectual property? It’s all about knowing which is the right tool for the right solution.

In a typical scenario, you’d use open APIs for your boilerplate and your endpoints. Then, you’d turn to generative AI for more unique stuff that doesn’t include any of your clients’ secret sauce. For example, ask your generative AI tool to write code that integrates your client’s new product with Okta. Virtually all of that data comes from Okta’s SDK (which anyone can find in a simple Google search) so that generative AI model isn’t learning anything of any significance about your client’s work. Once the basics are done, you’d give an expert developer the baton to create any necessary algorithms or business logic. That’s the secret sauce you want to keep close to the vest – and certainly, keep out of public AI models. 

Just like that, you’ve created a win-win. Your combo platter creates a more fulfilling work experience for your developers and a faster time-to-market for your clients.

Throughout this journey of better empowering our developers, we’ve enjoyed another benefit: the power to guide our clients through the gauntlet of AI questions, concerns, and capabilities. After all, Launch by NTT DATA works with enterprises in nearly every industry, in every corner of the world. The generative AI concerns in financial services are very different from those in healthcare, but thanks to our deep dive, we’ve been able to make educated recommendations. As a result, each of our clients can use generative AI in a way that’s appropriate for their business and their industry, and our developers get a front-row seat in the emerging AI era.

That’s how you walk the walk of “different by design,” “software over slides,” and “strategize, ship, and scale.” Want to be part of the team that does it? Check out our Careers page to see our latest job openings.