Why Your Business Needs to Invest in Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is rapidly affecting nearly every industry across the face of the globe. While you may think your business is too small to invest in something like AI, the fact is that it may be more affordable than you think. Right now every company has its opportunity to take advantage of artificial intelligence to increase their revenue and decrease their costs, perhaps getting a ‘leg up’ on their competition, but don’t ignore this opportunity; the time to act is RIGHT NOW.  In the very near future (10 years or less) you will see AI used widely across your industry, in ways you may not imagine, and if you are not planning ahead you are putting your business at tremendous risk.

While AI creates a massive opportunity, companies will not be able to take advantage of its benefits without putting forth effort. The executive management team must address artificial intelligence right now and approach this issue with deliberate intent. Whether you realize it or not, you are in a race to gain a competitive advantage. There will be winners and losers. Progressive businesses will gain a tremendous advantage that slower-moving competitors may never recover from.   AI will create a substantial performance gap between the progressive companies that take advantage of artificial intelligence and companies that fail to adopt AI or only partially take advantage of the technology.

How does your company make sure they are on the right path to take advantage of AI? Start by creating an artificial intelligence strategy for your organization, making sure that it accounts for the challenges your business will face.  One challenge that many businesses will need to address is a lack of data scientists available today. In recent years the demand for data scientists has grown rapidly, however, the talent pool has grown very slowly. This is a huge gap between demand and supply, which could leave smaller businesses unable to attract talent. Fortunately, they can turn to outside AI developers that are experts in the business to help them with their needs.

Other factors that your business should consider to ensure that you come out on top include artificial intelligence education for your organization. Take a deep dive into successful use cases and compare them to those that are unsuccessful. This will help your organization start looking for use cases that can propel your business forward. Additionally, you will want to share with them thoughts on how to overcome obstacles and how to create a path from a concept to a valuable software tool.

Each artificial intelligence project that your company undertakes should be able to create a measurable impact on revenue or customer experience. Consider potential applications and then rank the potential use cases based on both their feasibility and projected value. Applications that have a high projected value and a high degree of feasibility should be the first you integrate into your business systems.

Make sure you consider how you will monitor and govern these systems. Machine learning models tend to drift over time and the data you are inputting can change, so make sure you have a plan to govern your machine learning applications.  Your company must create guidelines and tests to protect itself from inadvertent bias or errors. Check regularly and make sure that your AI application is working as expected.

Right now is the time for your organization to start thinking now about how to leverage AI as a part of your corporate strategy with a plan to utilize it to transform your organization.  Creating and working with artificial intelligence should be second nature to everyone in your company, giving them the confidence to look for potential use cases. An empowered workforce will generate a multitude of ideas that can generate successful AI applications that drive earnings and improve the customer experience.

Decide right now that you want to propel your business forward by leveraging the power of AI. This means utilizing artificial intelligence to assist in more effectively running your business and providing you with a competitive advantage.  Start by identifying opportunities within your enterprise to significantly impact revenue with AI. Select the ideas that are justifiable based on projected value and practicality and execute these projects to push your business forward.

Image: Torkild Retvedt (Flikr) http://bit.ly/2PkATaM