AI is currently the hot topic in software circles. AI is not a new concept, but in the last few years it has started making a serious impact in the lives of people. In fact, we already use a lot of AI powered software in our day to day lives, like
AI is the ability of a computer or machine to think and learn. The motivation behind AI is to make machines mimic human cognitive abilities, and hence become able to solve complex problems like humans without needing them.
AI is not a replacement of humans, at least not in the current state. AI can be used to complement a human being’s abilities, to make them more productive or efficient in their work. AI can be used to do work that would be too menial for a human to perform.
Early on, multinational corporations started using AI to glean insights from large sets of data, collected from multiple sources. Such insights were used to increase efficiency of processes and automate wherever possible. This resulted in AI getting a reputation that it needed sophisticated technology and expensive implementation, which discouraged small business owners and entrepreneurs from seriously considering the technology.
Nowadays, due to a slew of new apps and software, gone are the days when business owners believed that AI was for giant multinational corporations only. AI is now more accessible, becoming the perfect tool for small business owners who are constantly battling shortage of resources and manpower. As a result, the owner’s work is simplified and they become more productive.
For example, Grammerly is a tool that helps you write in perfect english. Here’s another one that helps you build a beautiful website for your business. Another tool helps you make sense of your google analytics data. These are some of the tools for very small businesses, designed to make the job of the owner easier by increasing productivity.
For bigger businesses, AI is making waves in a number of areas & processes. Some of the popular areas are as follows
AI in recruitment has optimised the process of finding the right candidate. Not only are businesses able to select from a larger pool of candidates in a short time, but also shortlist the most suitable candidates easily.
Recruiter and agents have been using AI for quite sometime now. The simplest and the most widely used AI based system is an Application Tracking System (ATS) which scans through hundreds of CVs and looks for specific keywords and phrases.
AI also helps with the onboarding of selected candidates, answer candidate questions and set up interviews.
The past year has changed the way small and medium sized businesses look at online retail. All kinds of businesses, of all sizes now look at the internet as a valuable sales channel. Since the internet ensures that your product or service is visible all over the world instantly, personalization and targeted marketing is essential to reaching the right people.
Not only does AI help in finding the right target audience, but also in automatically responding to questions, suggesting suitable products or service for every person. This ensures a higher chance of completing a sales. The best part is that this can be achieved at a global level, which is otherwise impossible at this scale.
This is one area which is all businesses, big and small have to deal with. With AI, it is possible to deliver goods in a timely manner, without human intervention.
AI helps in constant optimization of the supply chain by regularly analysing the data of the past and tweaking the process algorithm accordingly. This results in flawless logistics which in turn result in superior customer experience.
Warehouse management is another area where AI makes a big difference. By analysing data, AI is able to keep the warehouse at optimum utility, avoiding over storage and under storage both, thereby saving costs.
Good customer experience is one of the top priorities of all businesses. AI has made providing a good experience easy and affordable for businesses of all sizes. The most widely adopted form of AI in this area is chatbots. Chatbots can chat with visitors on the website, and solve their queries, answer their questions and provide them specific information. Not only that, analysis of chatbot data can help the business understand customer needs and requirements. Chatbots can engage with a large number of customers 24x7.
Correct AI implementation depends on focused problem solving. AI will bring better results, depending on how well defined the problem it is trying to solve is. Hence, the first step is to make a list of all the biggest problems your business is facing - those which involve the biggest time drains or represent your greatest needs.
Digitization is a must for AI to work properly. You must first decide which processes can be digitized. The easiest and most common are accounting, finance, hiring, marketing, etc.
From the problem list that you’ve listed above, shortlist those that fall in the processes that you’ve decided to digitise. These are the set of problems that your AI will be able to solve efficiently.
Go after the low hanging fruit first i.e. the processes that have been in your businesses for a long time, and are easier to digitise. The reason is simple - the longer the process is operational, the more data it will have, which will make the AI more accurate in it’s decisions.
Even a state of the art AI and machine learning software will not succeed if the data provided to it is not sufficient. Gathering or acquiring sufficient data should be an important step in your AI system development plan. The more the data, the better the accuracy of your AI system.
The collected data should be of high quality - which means it must be true, and cover all possible scenanrios required by the system for learning.
With the advent of the AI / ML technologies huge number of training institutes have sprung up which train people with AI / ML development skills. Even if there are growing number of human resources available in this field, the thing to note here is the availability of quality resources is still scarce and as such your recruitment plan should be adjusted for this.
Any AI system that you implement will take time to start showing results, no matter how sophisticated it is. The results will have to be compared with real world scenarios and adjustments and adjustments will need to be made, in case there is a mismatch. AI uses machine learning to constantly learn and improvise, so the older the system and the more data it has, the more accurate it will be.
info@resonics-tec.com +91 986 030 1982
5/4 Bellevue, United Western Society
Karve Nagar, Pune 411052
Maharashtra, India