Artificial intelligence (AI) was once a topic reserved for high-level computer scientists and futurists. Today, it doesn't come with such daunting baggage.
Developments in the field have made AI accessible to just about everyone. AI subfields such as machine learning and natural language processing have even become buzzwords that we now constantly hear and read about in the news. And according to estimates, by 2020, the AI market will approach $50 billion.
Writing about the expanding AI market, California-based entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahalsays AI will eventually reach every industry, including real-time bidding, biometrics, marketing and speech recognition.
Infrastructure and platform providers such as Google and IBM also now offer access to their AI APIs. And cloud services, third-party developers can now use these APIsto integrate AI into their applications. Enterprises are now aggressively looking into implementing AI projects to improve their business functions.
Due to the intense competition in today’s business environments, enterprises should always be on top of issues before these become major problems. Thanks to the sophistication of analytics tools available today, decisions are now driven by data. This way, decision makers can avoid the pitfalls of biases and relying solely on intuition.
As such, there is a constant need to monitor and collect business information from which insights are to be derived. Managing the data becomes a major effort due to the sheer amount of it coming from a multitude of sources. Traditional business intelligence (BI) methods and tools struggle to cope with such volume and variety.
This is where AI comes in. Advanced algorithms are now used to crunch massive amounts of data and generate reports.
AI can even create visualizations and dashboards in real time. AI also can be trained to detect outliers and even monitor for thresholds based on key performance indicators so that the system can send out alerts and appropriate action can be done in a timely manner.
Another interesting development in AI is chatbots. Developments in natural language processing has enabled systems to be able to process many conversational prompts. While experts would argue that the Turing Test is far from being beaten, the widespread use of virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana for routine tasks is just a glimpse of what chatbots can do.
Popular messaging applications now opened up their development platforms to allow others to integrate their bots into these chat apps. For example, users can now order from 1-800-Flowers.com through Facebook Messenger. CNN’s Messenger bot can be asked about the latest events happening around the world. Even Uber allows you to book rides within the chat window.
For businesses, chatbots can provide a level of automation and free up resources used to manage functions account management and routine support. Other applications of chatbots even include ecommerce and online shopping. Users can simply ask the bot about certain products or provide descriptions of what they want, such as “Show me all your red shirts size small,” and the bot will respond with recommendations all within the chat window.
