Businesses should act now to realise AI’s full potential

While the debate about the opportunities and risks associated with Artificial Intelligence continue, it can be expected to be a situation for firms where they might have to wait for some more time to understand the effectiveness of AI. But there is another school of thought that believes that firms along with the existing knowledge should accelerate on the path of digitization to effectively harness the benefits derived from AI. AI is believed to be an extension to an already existing digital journey and it is in no way a shortcut. The job of developers is becoming more and more crucial as they need to work towards solutions that can deal with real life problems and don’t just sound interesting. The workers along with the government have to be prepared for immense changes in the working conditions and must be trained to complement machines rather than compete with them, even though there is job insecurity. Firms hoping to establish AI systems must enter the global market to look for talent and potential. The society as a whole is expected to resolve legal and ethical issues that could create barrier or challenges for the development of AI.

Businesses need to focus on the right approach and incorporating AI in a way that yields maximum profit. For instance, Uber and Lyft have revolutionised the taxi industry by integrating AI and made the process more user friendly. Artificial Intelligence can alter entire business models and firms that fail to realise this at present would inevitably be left behind. At present, the firms need to carry out an analysis to understand the use cases of AI and work on building supporting assets and digital capabilities. Adopting the right techniques, collaborative work culture and integrating technology are all important factors in the process. The prime thing that businesses need to do is to understand the realistic aspects of AI with regard to the present time, the hype and possibilities that sound too good to be true need to be separated. Knowledge of the limitations of AI and the difference from conventional technological methods need to be polished time and again. AI initiatives are different from regular business decisions and hence need to be carried out by both business leaders and technical experts. The orientation needs to be both business led and value focussed.

The next thing that businesses need to focus on is data generation. Data is at the heart of technology, AI would not never turn out to be successful if there is no data. Facebook is an impressive example of a company that makes money by extracting data from its users and the services it provides. It uses that data for improving the services and generate enormous data from it. The problem is that 90% of the data generated on a daily basis is considered to be flat data, so measures have to be taken to make this data successful and AI can prove to be a giant step in that direction. The identification of valuable data is as important as collecting data and that only be done through thorough analysis. The data should then be divided into groups according to how it can be made useful. The challenge in this situation arises because it is difficult to handle and distinguish such large amount of data. So companies need to make the decision of which data to store.

For Artificial Intelligence to be incorporated efficiently, companies need to find the right talent for profiles like data scientists that train the AI technologies and translators that cover the gap between data scientists and real life problems. But because the talent is limited and the demand for data scientists and translators would be on a rise, a test and learn is not criticised. Both external and internal collaboration are equally important for companies. Internally, companies need to maintain and improve teamwork and contribute to productivity and externally, they need to identify what would improve their business. Once the companies know AI capabilities, it needs to be incorporated in the workflow. It might involve automation or data collection or whatever the use case demands. To get the most out of AI, workers need to complement machines. Humans would take time to adapt to a machine-intensive culture as robots that can mimic human behaviour are anticipated as a result of AI, it becomes a priority to adapt to that culture. Trust becomes an imperative and debatable issue here. If there arises a need, then workers need to be retrained by companies to work alongside with machines since that is the need of the hour. These cultural and organisational changes become easier to adapt with good leadership skills that must be present within an organisation. Leadership support is a key element for adoption of Artificial Intelligence.

There is a prominent gap between AI and real life solutions. A better understanding of the market and consumers is what is required at this stage. There are consumers that are unwilling to use machines or rely on technology in all sectors especially health because if people are not able to understand how to operate the machine, it becomes very tedious and frustrating. Secondly, machines are not as reliable as human beings when it comes to durability and certainty. Machines can also sometimes produce inaccurate results and that can lead to disasters especially in the healthcare sector. This problem is becoming more serious and there are no direct solutions or measures that can be adopted by firms. Businesses need to identify their target consumers and find way to improve the trust on AI by emphasising on its reliability and productivity.

The role of government is also quite important in managing Artificial Intelligence and what it’s impact can be. The impacts of AI are not just restricted to firms and this can be proved by the number of government crafted AI development plans. Countries like USA, China, South Korea – all have issued national strategic plans. The tools of Artificial Intelligence can completely alter our lives but as it is seen now the gains are not more than the losses and risks. Automation would definitely displace labour, even if humans learn to work alongside. It will alter the way things function through partial automation. Definitely not all AI innovations hamper job security, some would merely facilitate the work. While AI ensures cost reduction, the technology can be expensive at the same time. The governments that are passionate about making AI hubs, need to gear up and elevate the standards to compete on a global level for attracting investment and talent. Investment in the AI innovations have been growing since 2013 but the development remains largely at experimental stage. While some firms at the digital frontier believe in the potential and have been investing in AI, there are yet others that are uncertain about its benefits. The government needs to support firms and citizens to ensure benefits from Artificial Intelligence and firms need to take calculated decisions with precision and understanding.

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