AI (artificial intelligence) has taken the world by storm lately. It seems to be everywhere, claiming to do everything from help you make a grocery list, improve your data analysis, or brainstorm marketing ideas. Many people aren’t even aware of how AI is used in their lives, such as music playlist recommendations, product recommendations, or email spam recognition.
But what is AI and how can it improve your business prospects?
When people think of AI, they tend to think of science fiction, robots that can think and have emotions, or Hal 9000, a sentient computer that becomes a threat to humanity. While the science fiction version could happen, it’s still decades, if not longer, in the future.
Keeping in mind that AI is still in its early phases and can change in unpredictable ways in the future, AI is basically a statistical tool. It incorporates a large volume of information and outputs information based on a prompt. As Google says, it’s, "a field of science concerned with building…machines that can reason, learn, and act in such a way that would normally require human intelligence or that involves data whose scale exceeds what humans can analyze."
Computers have always been able to compute more data than humans. AI takes this to a much larger scale. Pew Research, according to National University, performed a survey and found that 55% of Americans use AI regularly. In the workplace, it’s commonly used to filter spam in email or as a chatbot for customer service. It can also be used as a virtual assistant.
AI can help with more than just better products. Every business needs to market itself so that customers find them. AI can help with that. What is best for your individual needs vary.
AI can provide insights on market research to pinpoint your ideal customers. It can also show your customers’ journeys to buying your product. A major part of marketing is idea generation and creating content for your individual marketing efforts. AI can make those tasks easier than ever.
Keep in mind that while AI is a big help, it isn’t perfect. You will need to examine your results and tweak them to make the most of what you’re given.
Seeing as how AI is a big part of people’s lives now and will likely continue to expand, according to some estimates up to 37% annually, how does this affect your business?
Many products are starting to incorporate AI, such as bird watching cameras that use AI to identify bird species. Lorex makes security cameras that use AI for enhanced motion detection. And EKSAtelecom headphones have AI call-noise-cancellation so users can hear easier on calls. As AI is improved and evolves, more products will be able to use it to provide better customer experiences and to stand out from the crowd.
There will be more ways that products can take advantage of AI, expanding the offerings of image recognition and algorithm recommendations. Speech recognition will allow better speech-to-text products for phones and tablets. In addition, machine speech will sound more natural and human-like, getting rid of the awkward robotic voices many are used to. Apple’s SIRI or Amazon Alexa, both of which use AI software, will be even more impressive. The sky will be the limit of what products can be created with improved AI.
AI is making big strides, and it can improve given time. It’s anyone’s guess where it will be in the next year, the next 5 years, or the next decade. If you’re one of the business owners who want to utilize AI to improve your product offerings or bring more people to you, the future will be full of exciting changes. Petra will be here to keep track of developments, as well as stock the latest in AI-powered products. To view these and other products, check out petra.com.