Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer science fiction. It’s here. And like any game-changing technology, AI is not exactly what we expected – at least not yet. Rather than paving a dystopian reality where sentient machines have power over humans, technology companies are using AI to offer products and services that enhance customer experience and generate demand. Notable examples include Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa.
But it’s not just the world’s top tech brands that are dipping their toes into AI waters. At Blue Fountain Media, where I serve as director of strategy, we are beginning to look for opportunities to introduce new technology solutions that achieve our clients' business goals. The more the technology develops, the more businesses of all sizes and industries will be using AI to improve products and services. And if the rate of advancement over the past year is any indication, it’s going to become standard faster than we think.
Some Notable Statistics:
- AI bots will power 85% of customer service interactions by 2020.
- Investment in AI technology is expected to increase by 300% in 2017.
- AI technologies are projected to increase business productivity by up to 40% by 2035.
Business owners, marketers and digital agencies would be wise to start looking for opportunities to leverage AI technology. It’s not about making revolutionary products or services. It’s about optimizing existing business offerings, both internally and for customers. Here are three ways that your business can benefit from AI.
1. Improved Customer Service
The biggest AI success story is the rise of the chatbot. With the right programming, machines can listen to voice input, interpret information and employ actions according to user requests. Think Siri, but for specific business interactions.
But the big 2016 breakthrough for AI customer service was the ability for bots to perform tasks in addition to sharing information. Actions that used to require human effort from both customers and businesses can now be done almost completely with technology. Two prime examples are Pizza Hut and Uber, which utilize Facebook Messenger’s AI platform as a customer service tool.
2. Personalized Brand Experiences
Over the past three years, websites have gotten increasingly better at offering personalized experiences to users based on habits, locations and preferences. But the introduction of machine learning will allow websites to gather more nuanced insights about users and – better yet – make informed predictions about future behavior.
New York City-based technology firm Grey Jean recently announced a software platform powered by AI that collects data from a variety of sources (including point-of-sale purchases, loyalty programs, customer relationship management systems, social media and website analytics) to make real-time predictions about what shoppers will purchase next and when to employ promotions.
Social media has already been serving customized experiences for years, but advancements in integrated technology will enable a similar level of personalization across the internet, influencing the websites we visit, the news we consume and the products we buy.
3. Market Insights And Predictive Data
The introduction of the internet, and later search engines, removed much of the headache from research. Analytics platforms then gave us a vantage point to analyze the data we collected. Now, AI-powered tools are giving us access to deeper and more specific information, and using integrated data from numerous sources to make educated predictions about the future.
For example, Growthbot is a B2B chatbot service that allows businesses to access information about market trends, competitors and KPI metrics with a simple conversation interface. By connecting with various sources, including HubSpot and Google Analytics, Growthhub provides real-time reporting that could influence your next marketing campaign.
Economic Impact
One of the biggest objections to AI is the potential loss of jobs to cost-effective machines. According to reports, this concern is real. A recent study indicates that 16% of US jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence by 2025. This includes an expected 7% of jobs lost and 9% of jobs created. The future economic landscape will favor jobs that manage, plan and interact with technology and devalue jobs that are repetitive or process driven.
Two job markets poised for huge disruption are transportation and office work. Uber, Tesla, Google and Apple are deep into development of driverless cars, putting many transportation jobs at risk (especially truck driving, which represents the most common profession in the U.S. with 3.5 million jobs). Many office roles are at risk of being replaced by virtual assistants and task management tools.
But there is a silver lining. While many repetitive and low-skill jobs will be replaced by machine automation, new opportunities will arise that will shape the economy of our high-tech future. According to Newsweek, “Over and over again, the robot economy will invent work we can’t even dream of today, much as the internet gave birth to unforeseen careers. Nobody’s grandmother was a search engine optimization specialist. Today, that job pays pretty well.”
Contrary to popular belief, the rise of artificial intelligence could enable humans to behave less like robots and more like, well, humans. There is no indication that AI could replicate unique human strengths like social interaction, creative thinking, empathy, storytelling and judgment. (And these strengths are heavily relied on in the communications industry.)
In other words, let robots be robots. The AI revolution could push us toward a more creative, humanist future.
