Have you ever imagined an assistant that is always available for you wherever and whenever?
So, you are running out of groceries, and within a short period of time, you find out that they have been ordered for you from the nearest mall. Fantastic right?
Or you are running low on airtime and you are on a very important call, and just before you hear the familiar, friendly but annoying female voice, your account has been credited, and you don’t have to interrupt a flowing conversation. Some of us understand what interruptions due to conversations.
We could try to keep count of many more scenarios, but we will end up losing count. There are quite a lot of areas we wish we had an assistant will do exactly what we need, at the exact time we need it.
A few years back, it was compulsory to have a personal assistant – being a busy person – to keep one’s life in order, not missing schedules, meetings, and all. The physical assistant, however, has his or her limitations. Well, first, he or she cannot stick with you for the entire 24 hours we are given in a day. That person also has a life.
Today, however, we have Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, all intelligent digital personal assistants on various platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile). They help find the information that we need, responding to our voice prompt. You may ask; How do I get to Ikeja City Mall? What is my schedule for today? Search for movies showing at the cinema this week?
The assistant will respond by finding information, relaying information from your phone, or sending commands to other apps.
These applications use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to function the way they do. They collect information on your requests and use that information to better recognize your speech and serve you results that are tailored to your preferences. According to Microsoft, Cortana “continually learns about its user” and that it will eventually develop the ability to anticipate users’ needs. These virtual personal assistants process a huge amount of data from a variety of sources to learn about users and be more effective in helping them organize and track their information.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the branch of computer sciences that emphasizes the development of intelligent machines, thinking and working like humans. For example, speech recognition, problem-solving, learning and planning. Today, Artificial Intelligence is a very popular subject that is widely discussed in the technology and business circles. Many experts and industry analysts argue that AI or machine learning is the future – but if we look around, we are convinced that it’s not the future – it is the present.
So, while many are still seeing AI as the future, the reality is that it is the present. Every technology that has the ability to predict human behavior or imitate human behavior to carry out certain lined up tasks is built with AI. What AI truly brings to the table is, enabling machines to carry out intelligent tasks.
With global stakeholders and CEOs facing rock hill challenges, there is a pressing need to push economies, businesses, communities, and the world at large forward using the most modern technology. The need for businesses to revamp and restructure how machines and humans work in the present technologically advanced society, with the world-changing at an unprecedented speed. And AI is helping meet those goals. According to Forrester, Cognitive technologies such as robots, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automation will replace 7% of US jobs by 2025.
AI finds application in a host of industries including gaming, banking, retail, commercial, and government, and is slowly becoming pervasive in the manufacturing sector, facilitating the automation of industries.
AI In Businesses
AI is incredibly beneficial to the workplace and it can make your business grow while you can save some change and time.
Here is how.
Simplification of the Recruitment Process:
One of the most tedious processes in any business is recruitment. Virtually every year, companies retrench and recruit workers, and being a continuous process, it could be very demanding for the team saddled with the task, the Human Resource Department. Some companies even end up outsourcing in order to save themselves the stress. But AI offers a less stressful and cheaper process. AI integrated technology assists in developing job descriptions, scheduling interviews, as well as matching suitable candidates for jobs.
No Need For Repetitive Tasks In Daily Business Operations
Quite a number of daily business operations like scheduling, rescheduling and canceling meetings, setting up reminders and more could be quite stressful to administrative staff. AI tools are however available to perform these tasks very well.
Improvement In Handling Issues Related To Sales, Marketing and Customer Service
Chatbots are forms of artificial intelligence that can help with support outside the company. They gain experience from real sales and customer reps and use this to assist customers in purchasing goods and services. Questions regarding marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can also be handled by GrowthBot through the mining of data, both the public and the company.
Identification Of Security Risks And Protection Of Data
Financial institutions such as banks apply AI-based technology to point out security risks and protect data. Examples of software that make the use of Ai in such cases include Darktrace, Exabeam, and SparkCognition.
Increased Productivity
With AI handling most of the mundane and repetitive tasks at the workplace, workers are free to channel their efforts to more important tasks thus increasing productivity.
Productivity could also be boosted and monitored by machine intelligence by helping them discover areas that have high labor costs and other obstacles to increased efficiency.
AI In Societies
Imagine having to take a taxi that would take you to work from home, without a driver. Sounds scary? Well, driverless cars are no news anymore as they are underway already.
How deep has AI actually gotten into our society? You may not realize it but even right now, AI controls a vast number of technologies we use. From the internet to the mall, to the airport, wherever activities go on, in order to make things easier for both consumers and business owners, governments, and citizens, AI is being integrated.
The main key benefits of artificial intelligence are stated as follows:
1. Agility from orchestration: by harnessing the power of service integration and Develops, an agile and experience-oriented business, with programmable infrastructure, application releases, and catalog-based services, can be created.
2. Simplicity from autonomics: artificial and predictive analytics will self-healing, self-service, and proactive support, while minimizing waste and establishing elasticity. This will simplify the enterprise system workings and enable the up-place workforce to handle higher-level tasks.
3. Being lean through automation: Automating repetitive tasks will result in a waste reduction, workforce optimization, and efficiency point and improvements.
Will AI Eventually Replace Humans?
While it is hard to believe that machines will eventually take over the universe, it has been estimated that 90% of jobs will eventually be taken over by machines. While technological progress does not necessarily cause long-term unemployment. However, a recent innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will become obsolete, leaving people in various sectors without jobs to earn a living, leading to a possible economic crisis. Many small and medium-size businesses may also be driven out of business if they won’t be able to afford or license the latest robotics and AI technology, and may need to focus on areas or services that cannot easily be replaced for continued viability in the face of such technology.
It is believed that many who do not have the required skills to meet up with the demands of AI will also be out of jobs.
Some public figures, such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control.
While we pray and hope this does not happen ever, we also wonder about the threat of superintelligent machines in our world and how we can make sure we stay in control of our world.
For most of us, the evidence of the awesome power of AI is neat new gadgets and experiences such as smart speakers or being able to unlock your iPhone with your face. But AI is also poised to reinvent other areas of life. One is health care. Hospitals in India are testing software that checks images of a person’s retina for signs of diabetic retinopathy, a condition frequently diagnosed too late to prevent vision loss. Machine learning is vital to projects in autonomous driving, where it allows a vehicle to make sense of its surroundings. Artificial intelligence is already present in plenty of applications, from search algorithms and tools you use every day to bionic limbs for the disabled.
Sometimes it seems like every other website, app, or productivity tool is citing AI as the secret ingredient in their recipe for success. What’s less common is an explanation of what AI is, why it’s so cool, and how companies are leveraging it to provide better user experiences. If you don’t know much about AI, the absence of an explanation can be confusing.
Today, the field of artificial intelligence is more vibrant than ever and some believe that we’re on the threshold of discoveries that could change human society irreversibly, for better or worse.
