AI technology has been around for the last six decades, but it’s made remarkable strides especially in the last ten years. You now finally have the technology to utilize machine learning and AI technology as significant changes in your lives!
Since it’s popularization, AI has taken over and improved many industries like healthcare, journalism, customer service, marketing, and more. Companies like Uber, Netflix, Amazon, and even tech giants like Google and Apple are investing millions, but the real question is: does AI technology give back, too?
As an entrepreneur, your primary concerns are increasing revenue for your business and decreasing operational costs. Right now, all AI sounds like is a major expenditure with no real give back, but it’s far from it. AI and machine learning have been responsible for the success of countless industries and businesses, and it’s all because of how they increase their earning potential.
What Are AI and Machine Learning?
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence technology is computer technology that gives the tech the power to think, learn, and make intelligent decisions like humans do. The reality of AI is far from the science fiction stories pop culture is full of. Besides, AI technology is advanced, but not that advanced yet.
Machine Learning
Machine learning technology is sort of like a subset of AI — it analyzes past patterns and trends, learns from then, and then applies those trends and data into making future predictions and suggestions. Because of how important the data is for AI technology and softwares, many people say that AI is only as good as the data you use to train it.
AI in Business
AI in business simply means the employment of AI softwares to increase revenue, improve customer service and experience, increase employee and company productivity, and bring about business growth and transformation.
Many fields of business now use AI for these very purposes, and experts reckon that soon, businesses won’t be able to survive and compete in global markets across countless industries without integrating AI into their business models.
Now, let’s talk about what AI can do for your business.
Improving Customer Service and Experience
Many customer care decisions in organizations and even call centres have been automated in the last few years. They use AI technology to answer customer queries and solve their problems in real time, which makes it possible for an organization to provide customer service at all times while removing the need for 24/7 staff shifts.
Only the problems that haven’t been heard of before, or questions that the AI hasn’t been trained to answer yet are given over to a human customer service executive, and even those calls are used to further train the AI.
The tourism sector is using AI to provide hotel recommendations, solutions to problems, and many travel tips in the same way. AI gauges the customer’s needs, the context behind their situation, and determines the best course of action for them.
Increase Employee and Company Productivity
Instead of improving customer experience, many organizations use AI to make the average work day a little better for their employees. The automation of business processes and several day-to-day tasks increases employee productivity, overall satisfaction with the job, and eventually helps organizations meet their goals more quickly.
However, a reluctance from your employees to accept this kind of change is a barrier to using AI. This reluctance usually stems from myths and ethical objections that many old-fashioned people have raised over AI. To counter this, you can make your employees attend workshops and gain a proper understanding of AI to help them better understand and work with it.
Other Uses For AI in Business
Companies use AI to:
- Predict future market trends.
- Make their marketing campaigns more efficient.
- Track and assign resources to different branches and locations.
- Make their services better, and improve customer satisfaction.
- Earn and keep new customers.
Is AI the Future?
As stated before, experts have determined that AI is creating a real, disruptive change in the way businesses operate. This means that organizations that don’t integrate AI technology into their business models will eventually be left in the dust. They would be unable to compete with the efficiency that their competitors do business with, the costs they save on marketing and allocating resources intelligently, and the better customer experience they’ll be able to provide.
Much of the same thing happened to many companies, like Kodak, that failed to adapt to changing market trends and went bankrupt in 2012 after being the major seller of photography film and reels. It did create the digital camera, but it was unable to foresee the development of mobile photography and lost the battle to the smartphone.
Many companies can now avoid the same fate by predicting future market trends and public demand with the help of advanced machine learning softwares.
How Can AI Make You Money?
Well, AI can make you money simply by driving your operational costs lower and your profits higher.
It Can Make Your Business More Efficient
An efficient business earns more money, gives more results, and functions better than an inefficient one. With the help of AI, you can allocate resources to minimize product wastage, predict what branches would sell how much and plan accordingly, help your employees work faster and better, and save you tons of money on expenditures that would otherwise be seen as inevitable.
For example, a chain of grocery stores might use their sales to train machine learning softwares, which would then predict with accuracy how much of a product would be needed at what branch. This way, the chain can avoid overstocking one product in a particular branch, while another branch is facing a shortage of the same. Now that you think about it, that does sound better than just stocking all your outlets with the same amount of each product, doesn’t it?
It Can Save You Money on Marketing
AI isn’t just going to make you money; it’ll also save you tons of money. Marketing campaigns are now being run with AI softwares used to collect data from social media, so companies can determine what users are already looking for in their products. By marketing to those particular customers, many organizations have seen a decrease in their marketing costs, and an increase in their ROI.
This approach to marketing is invaluable in a time when all your customers are continuously bombarded with information, and you’re vying for their attention along with all your competitors. Simply putting your brand and product in front of countless people at random isn’t going to work anymore.
It Can Predict Future Trends and Demand
With the help of AI, you can predict what the demand for your product and services would be in the future. Conversely, you can also determine if demand would fall so much that you need to rethink your whole business strategy or think of a different thing to sell.
This can be vital in the survival of your organization, especially if the demand for your product is predicted to fall in a few years.
It Can Take Your Products to the Next Level
If you sell tech products, toys, healthcare technology, or anything remotely related to technology, incorporating AI softwares into it can take it to the next level.
In recent years, we’ve seen tech companies roll out astounding new technology like the AI dog, AI driven drones, and even cool, fun gadgets for adults.
How AI Technology Helps Businesses Succeed
Netflix
The streaming giant Netflix has been using AI technology to make it’s viewing platform more addictive and intelligent. It now analyzes user history and data to give users personalized recommendations, and even decides what thumbnails to show users based on that.
On a bigger scale, Netflix has used AI to predict the viewer demand for certain shows in different parts of the world, which allows it to plan and allocate resources within the company accordingly. Everything from the app to the running of the viewing platform has been turned into a well oiled machine with the help of AI, and that’s essentially what keeps Netflix at the top of its game, even while it’s in competition with many other platforms.
Amazon
Amazon has employed AI technology for the functioning of its business, and invested heavily in it. It now has products like Amazon Alexa, the intelligent AI assistant powering most of its devices.
Amazon is even using AI in its recently announced Amazon Health app. It was previously only available to it’s employees in Washington DC, but earlier this year Amazon announced that it will be able to provide the app to employees across all 50 states. The service claims to be able to connect a user with a healthcare professional in a matter of seconds, either through text or video link. Amazon has even offered the use of the service to employers all over the US.
Tesla
It’s no secret that Tesla uses AI in its electric cars. The cars are somewhat automated, with the ability to park themselves and drive themselves to the owner’s location on command. This is only possible because of the AI softwares running the car that are continuously collecting data from other drivers and can determine when to change lanes, speed up, turn, and slow down.
As the first cars of their kind, they’ve paved the way for further automation in the automobile industry.
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
All these social media platforms use AI to flag and regulate hate speech on their sites, which is a recurring issue. In a six-month period, Twitter was able to take down over 300,000 terrorist accounts that were flagged by the organization’s AI software.
iRobot
The company iRobot made a name for itself by selling the AI driven Roomba vacuum cleaners — small, robotic cleaners that can operate on their own. These vacuums are able to map your house and keep the floors clean before any significant dirt is accumulated, making them fairly popular.
The Future
These are only some of the ways AI has helped businesses become better, more profitable, and in line with the times. In the future, organizations may find it hard to function without the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, which makes it a natural next step for you to start thinking about it. You can either hire an in-house team for your AI needs or outsource to a team of data scientists that are better suited to handle your AI requirements.
