Looking through my window right behind my desk, lost and drowned in my thought on the endless opportunities, wealth creation and robust market artificial intelligence holds for businesses in a developing continent like Africa, what can be achieved is incredible.
Knowing that artificial intelligence isn't just a theory, but has enormous practical applications, a 2016 Gartner research indicates that by 2020, at least 30% of companies across the globe will use AI in one area of their business processes or the other. Several businesses are already leveraging on this to optimize their process and harvest unusual revenues and profits.
Briefly, let's get to see three major applied use cases of this technology in business and management.
• Virtual assistance
Consider the logistics behind major organizations like airlines, McDonalds and Amazon. KLM Dutch Royal Airways for example interacts with thousands of people on a daily basis across the globe and in real time. The immense volume of an organization like this makes customer relationship management captious to their modus operandi. This is where artificial intelligence comes in. Chatbots like those implemented by facebook on messenger platform and intelligent systems can be KLM's life saver in connecting them to their markets robustly. Chatbots are responsive to customers queries irrespective of the time, they are efficient, scalable, can handle limitless clients at a time and are costless to implement. In this manner, less labour is employed, cost is saved and efficiency or time saving is multiplied.• Predictions, Forecasting and Generation of business and market insights
Note that AI feed on historical and statistical data in order for it to recognise patterns and make predictions in scenarios they are employed.Apparently, Data has been considered as the "new oil" since it is the raw material of our digital economy and global village. Unlike oil which remains useless without the required machinery to extract and process it, likewise data remains useless, trapped in storages, databases and clouds. Artificial intelligence can help businesses extract unique patterns or trends found in these databases and process billions data patterns in seconds. The amazing part is that AI is not static. It is dynamic, it can learn and adapt. These patterns and trends can be fed back into the business to enhance it processes.
Let's take for example a customer service department of an airline in an airport. AI can make predictions ahead to inform about a customer's need based on past needs or purchases trends of the customer whenever they call the care line.
• System Automation
Advancement in technology has increasingly led to corresponding automation of work. From agriculture, to manufacturing and automated hotel bookings, automation has seen significant growth over the years. Since the bigger picture is the introduction of artificial intelligence, the only difference with automation is where it works.Artificial intelligence is rapidly automating routine processes,similar way heavy duty industrial machines automated physical labor. Other than the fact that these technological advances are extremely capable, they do not require mundane breaks like tea, lunch or smoke breaks. It is then germaine that every start-up, business decision maker and entrepreneur should look into the benefits artificial intelligence can unlock in their commercial endeavors.
- Conclusion & Thought
If AI, automation, 3D printing and nanotechnology will be doing all the work, what then will humans do 9-5?This was the highlight of a panel at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, 23-26 January, 2018 titled "putting jobs out of work". Check full report at Huffpost. This and many more are interesting questions these technological advances throw at us.
What's your thought?
References
Businesses can Benefit from Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from Clickatell/ Acessed April 18th, 2017.Top Uses and Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Business. Retrieved from Newgenapps/ Acessed April 18th, 2017.
Until next time, keep #steemSTEM!