AI in practice: professional day at the University of Pécs Faculty of Sciences

On 22 September 2026, the Faculty of Sciences (TTK) of the University of Pécs hosted its third Artificial Intelligence Professional and Career Day in the Vargha Damján Conference Hall. Speakers from industry discussed how companies use AI in their operations and how isolated experiments can become standard organisational practice.

AI in university life

Opening the event, Dr András Trócsányi, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, described IT as one of the faculty’s most important fields of study, which makes motivating and retaining students a priority. He noted that international enrolment in IT has grown quickly and that business practice now plays an increasingly important role in training. At the first edition of the event, AI was mainly a subject of curiosity. Today it is part of everyday university life.

Integrating AI into business processes

Péter Jagodics, Head of Application Development at Körber Hungária, presented an international SAP S/4HANA rollout. He showed how AI can support project teams with documentation, information processing and collaboration. According to him, one of the biggest challenges is fitting AI models into existing workflows. Human oversight remains essential, as small errors can spread through an entire process.

Gergely Tóth of SAP Hungary outlined how AI can be embedded in business processes, including through task-specific AI agents. In his view, professionals who understand both AI and business processes will have the best career prospects.

Lajos Hankó and Tamás Őri, AI and automation specialists at ALDI International IT Services, shared a case study on running AI agents within controlled limits and a fixed token budget. They found that giving agents too much data makes it harder for them to reach decisions. For this reason, they rely on predefined workflows, targeted language-model calls and purpose-built tools. They stressed that solutions must be tailored to each company’s processes and that critical decisions still require human judgement.

AI as a “junior colleague”

Barna Paulovics, IT Director of Bonafarm Group, described AI as a tool rather than a cure-all. It cannot replace professional expertise, but it can work as a useful “junior colleague” alongside experienced staff. This raises questions about how newcomers will be trained: if AI takes over some entry-level tasks, traineeships may become even more valuable.

Réka Tarnai, SAP HR Architect at ERP Consulting, showed how AI can support recruitment in SAP SuccessFactors, from sourcing and assessing candidates to speeding up selection. Her talk also raised the question of what role algorithms should play in HR decisions.

The programme also included a discussion of Bell Research findings on AI use in Hungarian software development and companies’ organisational readiness. Short talks on the successes, failures and lessons learned from Hungarian AI projects completed the day.

Source: University of Pécs News Centre (in Hungarian)