Does Your Business have an AI Strategy?
AI stands to disrupt almost every industry, offering the ability to operate more efficiently and cost-effectively, while unlocking previously unavailable business insights by processing more data than the human brain is capable of.
Perhaps the best way to fully understand the AI opportunity – and ensure your organization is realizing it fully – is to understand how AI is currently being used, the challenges around AI, and how it will deliver for organizations in the future.
The Current State of Play
AI has rapidly evolved in recent years, with businesses in sectors ranging from healthcare and finance to manufacturing and entertainment identifying new ways to use the technology to take decisions, transform operations and engage customers.
While AI has existed at a conceptual level since the mid-20th century, advances in computational power, algorithmic innovation and the increased ability to capture data have been key to businesses realizing tangible results in recent years.
The development of neural networks – and deep learning in particular – has also played an important role in AI developing human-like cognition, which has delivered benefits across multiple industries.
AI Across the Business Landscape
It’s increasingly apparent that the only real limitation on the application of AI is human imagination, with the technology delivering significant results across the business landscape.
In healthcare, the industry is diagnosing diseases – at a level of accuracy that matches and even exceeds human doctors – while also devising treatment plans and predicting potential disease outbreaks.
Meanwhile, financial institutions are using AI to make trades on the market, while also applying the technology to detecting fraud and calculating credit scores. Meanwhile, AI chatbots are helping businesses in this sector respond to customer queries more efficiently. For some businesses, this includes making use of Stefanini’s AI chatbot, Sophie, which is based on cognitive computing and artificial intelligence and offers human-like interaction.
Meanwhile, manufacturing businesses are developing smart factories, making use of AI and sensors to allow machines to take decisions with minimal human oversight, while AI-powered robots can perform intricate tasks, boosting efficiency and reducing errors.
Within retail, AI is enabling businesses to offer smarter personalized recommendations to customers, while managing stock inventory, optimizing supply chains and forecasting demand.
Smarter recommendations are also a major benefit of AI for entertainment businesses, such as streaming services, while other companies in this sector are using the technology to generate visual effects and to enhance gaming experience through facial recognition.
The Challenges of AI – from Security to Data
While AI offers huge potential benefits to businesses, the application of the technology is not without its challenges.
Generating articles, music or images using AI, for instance, poses challenges in terms of copyright and intellectual property rights – particularly in instances where AI is being used to imitate the style of well-known individuals.
Equally, AI can pose businesses challenges when it is deployed by bad actors. This includes cybercriminals making use of AI to identify vulnerabilities in systems and launch attacks.
AI can also undermine business efforts to embrace diversity by perpetuating the biases that might exist within the data the AI solution processes.
An Exciting Future
Despite these challenges, there’s little doubt that the new levels of efficiency, innovation and customer engagement means AI has a crucial role to play for businesses now and in the future.
Overcoming challenges will be vital – and will require collaboration between governments, industry and academia – with regulations necessary to ensure the responsible use of the technology.
Based on the AI’s current trajectory, the coming years promise even greater advances – businesses that get ahead of the curve will be best positioned to harness the full potential and unlock new levels of success in a more intelligent and automated future.
Stefanini has not only devised its own AI solutions but is also continually conducting research to gain insights into the latest trends in the industry. Learn more about our solutions and get in touch with us to discuss the unlimited potential AI offers your business.
