Artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived. It has even been at the helm of its own sea voyage. Businesses use AI Products and services to their advantage in several, often unexpected ways. AI and machine learning are taking mundane tasks out of human hands, leaving us more time to focus on what matters.
AI is streamlining workflows, analysing big data and even coming up with intelligent management strategies in some cases. Even if you aren’t quite sure what artificial intelligence can do in your business environment, you’ve probably encountered it without being aware of its presence. AI is changing business. And it’s evident in several different ways.
Decoding AI and Machine learning
AI and machine learning, while not mutually exclusive, are two different branches of the same tree. AI or Artificial intelligence broadly refers to software with human attributes and abilities. For example, AI can learn and extrapolate data to solve problems and plan based on the information it provides.
Machine learning is a branch or subset of AI widely used in our everyday lives; both for business and pleasure. In essence, you supply a machine learning application with data that it is programmed to understand, and it processes or “learns” new behaviours based on the data it has received.
Machine learning is capable of processing data thousands of times faster than humans can, and it can use the data to identify patterns, like gaps in workflow or production processes. If a machine at a manufacturing site is working at reduced capacity, a machine-learning algorithm will identify the “break” in the production line that needs to be addressed.
Going deeper into machine learning
Deep learning is a type of machine learning that can take data one step further, by analysing and learning unpredictable behaviour – much like humans do – to create working solutions or models. In business terms, deep learning can help construct working company organograms or management strategies.
Do AI products and services mean an end to human capital?
Artificial intelligence is, by no means, a threat to human ingenuity. It is a tool that potentially gives us superpowers. Harnessing the energy of machine learning, artificial intelligence and deep learning can help you plot a course for the most efficient way to run your business. Here are a few practical examples of AI products and services that work for business:
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic process automation software automates those annoying little tasks we don’t like. For instance, if you need to open a spreadsheet and insert information, then copy from one cell to another and close the spreadsheet again, RPA can be your digital secretary and do it for you.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Optical Character Recognition combines AI, computer vision, and pattern recognition to turn written, printed or typed text into editable digital text. So, if you take a photograph of a paper document, OCR can turn that document into digital text.
Identity verification
Identity verification can be tricky. And it is a sensitive area in terms of fraud prevention and legislative requirements for many institutions. AI and RPA technology tick all the boxes, combining online and multi-factor authentication and omnichannel checks with minimal human involvement.
We still need people, but AI helps
AI and machine learning are not sentient – at least not yet. They aren’t capable of “sensitive” reasoning as we humans are. This is why humans and AI work so well together. AI takes the emotion and drudgery out of the tasks we would rather not engage in while we take the data AI gives us and apply it in more sensitive ways.
An AI application may not be able to write the next great movie script. But it can analyse all the most lucrative movie tropes to provide you with a basis for a record-breaking blockbuster.
In less ambitious terms, AI can analyse a human resources model and suggest an optimal structure to reframe your organisation. Still, it can’t take the place of an HR manager who understands the subtleties and personal relationships that enhance your business output more abstractly.
AI products and services are enablers. They give us the scope to capitalise on the most valuable commodity we have in our working lives: time. Steve jobs called time “The most precious resource we all have”, and Benjamin Franklin famously coined the cliché we’ve all heard in motivational speeches, adverts and nights at the dinner table: “Time is money”.
AI is not taking over the world. But it gives us time to take a lunch break and still meet our targets. Contact Vision AI to extend your lunch break and discover better productivity at work.
