Artificial Intelligence is widely used by many modern companies. Small and big businesses have already discovered its benefits and advantages. However, the potential of the AI for industry leaders and different firms is not fully understood. In addition, Artificial Intelligence itself is a really disruptive technology that offers more and more functions and applications every day. The experts predict that in a few years AI will be used by 90% of businesses.

HOW IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USED IN DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES?

One of the rules that a successful company should follow is ‘innovate or die’. It means it should find better ways to conduct the business than other competitors. Artificial Intelligence offers companies new opportunities: better customer service, faster production, and automation of many processes. This is why many businesses have already implemented AI to simplify their daily routine tasks.

Healthcare

AI offers nearly endless possibilities for healthcare. It is currently used by industry innovators to predict diseases, identify high-risk patient groups, automate diagnostic tests and to increase the speed and accuracy of treatment. It can also be used to improve drug formulations, predictive care, and DNA analysis that can positively impact the quality of healthcare and affect human lives.

It is also used to efficiently collect individual patient data. AI-driven diagnostics can quickly sort through the massive amounts of data to suggest possible causes of medical conditions and ways to treat them.

Retail

AI chatbots are among the most useful applications for this industry. This technology allows retailers to increase the amount of collectible customer data, giving them a competitive advantage over those who do not implement chatbots. When customers use verbal requests to navigate websites and to make purchases, chatbots are able to capture audible reactions, improve conversation capabilities, and over time, provide a retailer with the analytics that can be associated with the emotions of customers while online.

As a result, the analytics provide retailers with enough data to predict customers’ emotional responses to their online experience. This, in turn, enables retailers to tailor and personalize customer experience with a focus on creating a happy experience. This increases the chances that the customer will return in the future.

Finance

AI is also dominating the finance market, performing many tasks faster and more efficiently than humans — from managing investments to collecting financial data. Industry leaders use predictive analytics to anticipate changes in the stock market and gain more investment opportunities. Almost every company in the financial technology sector has already started using AI to save time, reduce costs, and add value.

Another good example of an implemented AI-drive application is a bank chatbot. When customers want to discuss their account information or reset an account password, this job is done by an AI robot. Some banks use AI as an image recognition software to analyze legal banking documents. The AI extracts particular information and clauses in seconds, compared to the 360,000 hours it takes to manually review 12,000 annual commercial credit agreements.

Education

AI also has a lot to offer to the education industry. While some professors and teachers worry that AI technology may replace them in the near future, developers and educational technology researchers claim that AI technology is meant to assist teachers rather than take their jobs.

This includes exploring how courses could be improved. From finding gaps in lectures during a class, to giving students an extra educational support, the AI technology can provide immensely helpful feedback to both educators and students to rapidly improve educational methods and refine the curriculum.

Transportation

AI technology is very effectively used in the transportation industry. The AI collects data from a variety of sources to optimize and adjust shipping routes and simplify distribution networks. What is more, it can suggest using self-driving cars and trucks to reduce costs and save time.

Some shipping companies are already trying to build self-navigating cargo ships: implemented AI-driven steering system may lay out the shortest, safest and most fuel-efficient routes based on the information about weather and any obstacles that might be in a ship’s way. Artificial intelligence can help them to reach their goal – to develop new technology that predicts malfunctions, reduces maritime accidents and improves efficiency.

AI has already proven that it is a reliable and effective tool that can be used in any business sphere. Industries’ leaders use it to improve their services and production process, to be more successful and take first positions among rivals.

AI FOR SMALL AND BIG BUSINESSES

Obviously, the Artificial intelligence is a growing force in the technology industry: chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming a key part of new products, and robots are showing potential in various areas.

For businesses, practical AI applications can be used in all sorts of ways depending on the organizational needs and the business intelligence insights. Enterprises employ AI for many different tasks, from mining social data to driving engagement in customer relationship management. AI helps optimize logistics and efficiency when it comes to tracking and managing assets.

Another well-known fact: companies with billion-dollar budgets have more opportunities to develop effective AI-integrated service. Amazon and Microsoft have teams of data scientists working round the clock to build machine learning models that can increase efficiencies or find the best delivery routes.

However, small firms also use Artificial intelligence to improve customer service, collect data and find the best solution for their needs. Voice-search assistants and integrated chatbots that help customers to find products or information and answer frequently asked questions are among the most popular AI technologies around the world. Another useful solution for nearly all kinds of companies is a tool that analyses employee engagement and gathers feedback on development needs. It helps to create a positive workplace culture and reassures team members that their feedback is heard and understood.

There are AI-enabled tools that can quickly determine a product-market fit by teaching machines to understand consumer segmentation. Instead of having to pour over endless amounts of data manually, businesses can use AI to quickly gather and evaluate market analytics. Small and big businesses become more targeted in their advertising, both traditional and online. AI is able to pinpoint customers and give the business a better insight into targeting their customer base.

The options for using AI might seem endless for business owners – gathering data analytics, finding and leasing corporate real estate, managing day to day communications, scheduling meetings and more.

CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Artificial intelligence is used to solve many challenges in different industries and areas. Nevertheless, experts claim that it is still one of the most difficult technologies to implement in a day-to-day business. Some companies are not ready to meet difficulties during the implementation process. However, AI is worth all the efforts.

Lack of Computing Power

AI is a deep learning technique which is most promising in situations that require a huge number of calculations to be made very quickly. This means it uses a lot of processing power. One of the most accessible and popular solutions to this problem is cloud computing. As data volumes continue to grow, deep learning drives the automated creation of increasingly complex algorithms and this is where the development of the next generation of computing infrastructure is needed. Some big companies just use several clouds at the same moment.

Lack of People Power

Until very recently, AI has been some kind of a science fiction thing people read about in the books. Not many organizations were ready to invest in this area. However, a few years ago AI has become a new technology that disrupted IT-industry. The bad news was that the education system was far from ready for this challenge. This is why the IT sector doesn’t have enough people who know how to operate the machines which think and learn for themselves. The main recommendation for those who want to build and implement some AI instruments is to hire a specialized company, which will develop an AI-driven app or offer a ready-made solution.

Lack of Trust

People don’t feel comfortable when they don’t understand how the decision was made. Using AI in different areas simplifies daily routine tasks for teachers, doctors or bank employees. However, ordinary customers can be confused with some AI actions. For example, some AI applications can diagnose the disease based on the symptoms and feelings described by the patient and offer a treatment. The developer claims that this app is only a recommendation for the doctor, and the decision is up to him. The work of the AI-driven application is based on a complicated analyzing algorithm developed by a human, but the patient doesn’t see these months of hard work. All he sees is a few moments that passed from the data entry to the final solution. The solution for this is letting people see that this technology works.

Artificial intelligence is constantly transforming our daily routine businesses tasks and our way of life. The efficiency of the businesses itself will soon depend on further analytical developments and improvements of AI technology. That is why it is so important to implement the AI applications today.