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Business Impact of AI: 3 Areas to Watch

No longer the realm of just science fiction, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a reality, impacting manufacturing, computing, and each day of our personal lives.

The technology news can’t get enough of the way that robotics and other innovations are helping to guide how things are made, safety, and how people and organizations make decisions. Today we present three business areas to watch, including how robots are now “creating new robots.”

Data-Driven Machines

One business area to watch comes from the output of data-driven machines. The Internet of Things is a powerful network of objects, from machine parts to cars to the thermostat in your home. Today, these devices are collecting and transmitting information about performance, use, and maintenance to each other, humans, and centralized storage.

Companies are using the massive amounts of data generated by the IoT in remarkable ways. Machine learning can guide companies on how to optimize the use of tools, alert workers to needed maintenance or repairs, and make better decisions about scheduling and markets.

Structured and unstructured data needs to be stored, often in the cloud, where exabytes of information can be stored and analyzed. We generate a great deal of information too, from usage patterns to requests for information that companies use to provide deeper insights into products and services.

Robots Making Robots

A second business area to watch: The exponential benefits of advanced learning.

Neural networks, the computer algorithms behind software and digital tools, are now capable of advanced learning that allows these devices to do tasks on their own. It’s the technology behind facial and voice recognition and the technologies that can help identify diseases in scans.

Neural networks that can learn and anticipate are key to personal assistants such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. Using voice recognition, these tools can understand what we say and answer basic questions.

Experts predict that these digital assistants will improve their capabilities in 2018 regarding conversations. In the future, these assistants may become more attuned to emotional nuances in speech, cross-language communication, and even recognizing signs of mental illness and providing resources or support.

Advances in machine learning mean that robots with sophisticated machine-learning algorithms can now help build new machine–learning algorithms. AI is building AI.

Advances in voice recognition will help personal assistants recognize more nuanced communication among and from users.

Smart Automation & Chatbot

Businesses are also gaining benefit through increased customer engagement and satisfaction that come from smart automation and chatbots.

AI is analyzing how we make decisions, whether it’s which email we open and click through to a website, or how often we order paper towels from Amazon. Automation continues to learn from behaviors and anticipate needs. By studying these patterns, AI can suggest options for us (such as when to reorder), fine-tune delivery of messaging in the moment of need, and recognize issues that may become future issues in machines and tools.

In addition, chatbots populate many websites these days, asking questions that help deliver solutions to problems or connecting users to the right person. Bots can also be used to simplify work and personal business. For example, Alexa now can integrate a family’s schedules through syncs with Microsoft Outlook and Google.