Where You Should Use Artificial Intelligence - and Why

Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) has skyrocketed in recent years. In fact, the volume of customer conversations regarding AI has increased by a factor of 200% from 2015 to 2016. Nevertheless, many organizations that are exploring AI and its applications are doing it for the sake of doing it, rather than to address the need for improvement and efficiency.

The media and intellectual celebrities have also tended to incorrectly characterize AI as a technology that will end up replacing human workers with robots. Nevertheless, the technology can deliver more value if deployed alongside employees with domain expertise, or when it's mapped against various business strategies. AI comes into its own when data is well-defined and where there is a quick demand for immense scale prediction and classification. 

Where to Use AI

CIOs that are responsible for AI-oriented projects should shortlist the applications that are sure to improve with training. They should also be able to interpret their value by using all sorts of evaluation strategies such as RFPs, RFIs, and proofs of concept (POC.)

These will then be further selected and prioritized in the business value they are capable of delivering, but no project should be forced to fit in any category just for the sake of implementing AI.

AI needs to be employed to solve various challenges where you either lack the resources or the work base to be successful. The tasks, however, need to be repetitive and with different outcomes such as FAQs with different answers.

You should also combine your efforts with chief data officers (CDOs) when evaluating the compatibility of a project and AI. This evaluation should be based on the data the applications will ingest and the validity of data capturing the outcomes of the project.

AI Use by Industry

Each industry has its specific need for AI implementation; looking for more speed and efficiency, to enhance their customer experience, or to improve data processing and analytics.

When it comes to sales and marketing, AI can customize the sales process by personalizing communications and pricing, as well as better match sales staff with buyers. In the service sector, AI can offer better virtual customer assistance and triage, connect service staff with customers, uncover process gaps, and predict any future maintenance or repairs. 

When it comes to the supply chain, artificial intelligence can uncover and correct any data errors or potential risks in the supply chain. It can also plan logistics and elevate insights coming in from various IoT devices. In healthcare, patients can be followed up post-discharge by virtual nursing assistants, while in retail, machine learning and NLP (Natural Language Processing) will learn from the consumer to generate behavioral insights.

So-called tutor bots will be able to provide personalized learning opportunities in education. The financial and banking sector will benefit in the form of chatbots that can help customers access their bank balance more easily. In the office, AI will be able to discover and deter any compliance errors, as well as to support interactions and meetings with action items by enhancing digital dexterity.

In short, you will have to look for possibilities to implement AI technology in areas that you previously couldn't tackle efficiently because of a lack of resources or qualified personnel. Also, engage with employees to determine which of their tasks can be addressed through AI. For more information on artificial intelligence and its practical uses, feel free to contact us directly.