THE IMPACT AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) ON BUSINESS

WHAT IS AI?

For years, it was thought that computers would never be more powerful than the human brain, but as development has accelerated in modern times, this has proven to be not the case.
AI as a concept refers to computing hardware being able to essentially think for itself, and make decisions based on the data it is being fed. AI systems are often hugely complex and powerful, with the ability to process unfathomable depths of information in an extremely quick time in order to come to an effective conclusion.

HISTORY OF AI. 

Artificial intelligence was founded as an academic discipline in 1956, and in the years since has experienced several waves of optimism. In the twenty-first century, AI techniques have experienced a resurgence following concurrent advances in computer power, large amounts of data, and theoretical understanding; and AI techniques have become an essential part of the technology industry, helping to solve many challenging problems in computer science, software engineering and operations research.

AI has proven itself as a valuable and effective way to perform routine tasks in a variety of industries, it has the ability to free up your times and provide accurate completion of routine skills.

HOW WILL AI AFFECT BUSINESS.

Improved Business Intelligence Analyzing businesses has become easier and more effective thanks to business intelligence. The set of data tools that makes business intelligence possible is big data. Before big data was introduced, business intelligence was somewhat limited. However, now, business intelligence is considered a legitimate career.
 
Price Optimization: Knowing what discount, if any, to give a client is always a tricky situation. You want to win the deal, but at the same time you don’t want to leave money on the table.  Today, an AI algorithm could tell you what the ideal discount rate should be for a proposal to ensure that you’re most likely to win the deal by looking at specific features of each past deal that was won or lost. Features could include: size of the deal in terms of amount, product specification compliance, number of competitors, company size, territory/region, client’s industry, client’s annual revenues, public or private company, level of decision-makers (influencers) involved, timing (e.g., Q2 vs Q4), new or existing client, etc.

Forecasting: Sales managers face the daunting challenge of trying to predict where their team’s total sales numbers will fall each quarter. Using an AI algorithm, managers are now able to predict with a high degree of accuracy next quarter’s revenue, which in turn would help a company, from an operations standpoint, to better manage inventory and resources.

Upselling and Cross-Selling:  The fastest and most economical way to grow your top-line revenue is to sell more to your existing client base. But the biggest challenge is, who is more likely to buy more?  You can spend a lot of money on marketing to those who won’t buy, or you can use an AI algorithm to help identify which of your existing clients are more likely to buy a better version of what they currently own (up-sell) and/or which are most likely to want a new product offering altogether (cross-sell). The net effect is an increase in revenue and a drop in marketing costs.


Managing for Performance: Every month, sales managers have to assess the revenue pipelines of each of their sales people with an eye towards nurturing deals that might stall, or worse, fall through. Using AI, sales managers can now use dashboards to visually see which sales people are likely to hit their quotas along with which outstanding deals stand a good chance of being closed. This will allow a manager to focus their attention on key sales people and associated deals that will help the company hit their quota.

Create a More Customized User Experience With AI on the minds of not only businesses, but also customers, it’s definitely going to become more aggressive. More businesses and brands will use AI to customize the user experience, while analyzing data, buying trends and browsing history. There will no longer be a need to ask for name, email and contact information, as this will soon all readily be available through the use of AI.

Change How We Use Social Media The biggest impact of AI will involve social media. The coming year will see a rise in real-time personalized content targeting with the aim of creating increased sales opportunities, mainly because AI can make use of effective behavioral targeting methodologies.

Predict Customer Behavior Although AI is being used to predict customer behavior to some extent, it will get a boost in the future. Businesses will use AI to detect if a customer is willing to purchase the product, seeking support or switching to another provider even before they actually approach. The focus will be on making machine learning intense so that it appears more human for better engagement and successful deals.

Enable 24/7 Customer Support With chatbots being employed to deliver 24/7 customer support, businesses can also incorporate this data into their CRM to gather more valuable customer insights. This data can then be used to optimize various touch points, including chatbot interactivity, creating a feedback loop of customer data. Ultimately, AI enables the ultimate customer experience by providing indispensable customer data.

Increase Digital Commerce and Online Marketing With the new Google Assistant, online shopping is becoming more convenient. It’s going to be much easier to tell your AI assistant to purchase something that can be delivered to your doorstep in one to two days. This means that companies will need to invest in optimizing their online product to compete with e-commerce competitors.

Hiring AI is making it more efficient for everyone, from small business owners to HR departments at large companies, to find suitable employees. Screening and research that might have taken hours in the past can be done in seconds by software programs. Of course, hiring still requires live interviews, but AI can really make the initial stages of filtering candidates much more efficient.

Help Financial Trading Decisions Machine learning algorithms are making it easier to predict future trading decisions. By recognizing patterns, they are able to create strategies and adapt much quicker than humans. There are already a number of AI-based hedge funds popping up, and this is just the beginning.

BIG DATA AND AI; THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS 

WHY IS BIG DATA KEY TO AI SUCCESS

Big Data is AI’s fuel. It is both what trains AI to become increasingly powerful and what AI systems are ultimately applied to in order to generate real-world insights. The more data AI systems can tap, the greater their intelligence and disruptive potential.

While AI as a concept has been around for more than 50 years, a shortage of structured data for much of that span and computational limits stunted AI’s growth. For example, good speech-recognition technology requires about 150,000 hours (i.e., 10 years) of audio data. Facial recognition applications require roughly 15 million images.

Only until recently was that much image and audio data readily available. In fact, 90% of the world’s data has been generated since 2015.¹ That year, the digital universe, i.e., the reservoir of data created and copied, totaled less than 10 zettabytes—that would be 10, followed by 21 zeros. By 2020, it is expected to grow more than four times to 44 zettabytes. Just five years after that, it could reach 180 zettabytes.

Much of this growth can be attributed to the increased adoption of the Internet of Things and advancements in deep learning. With more connected devices recording videos, measuring heart rates, or tracking deliveries, the world’s information is becoming increasingly digitized. Combining this data creation with advancements in deep learning for image and speech recognition, more and more information is not just saved and stored now, it is structured and analyzed by AI systems.


CONCLUSION

The future of AI will be data driven and our ability to gather, analyze and use that data. The reason people are only now looking to the future of AI, bearing in mind it is not a new concept by any means, is that companies are considering and planning their strategies given the move to, and future management of, cloud-based systems.

If you want to help your business achieve more, then embracing big data and AI is a must. The fact is, it isn't going to be long before the businesses that have failed to embrace this new technology are going to be left behind.