What managers should know about AI
Regardless if you consider yourself a tech person or not, it is impossible to ignore the prevalence and importance of tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence in almost every industry. As a manager, you don’t have to be a professional in these fields, but you have to be proficient enough to understand and utilize these powerful tools.
Any real comprehension will take time and determination, but certain fundamental core concepts are readily available and easy to understand. Today we will go through some of the basic concepts of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and how your company can benefit from using them.
How can ML and AI help your company?
Analyze data
No amount of human research and understanding will ever compare with a machine’s ability to conduct data analysis. Computers and analytics software have allowed previously unimaginable calculations to improve customer satisfaction, product quality, and financial gain within companies. Never in human history have we had this degree of information in every sphere of our lives. We have collected and analyzed data regarding almost every aspect of our lives. While this also comes with a slew of concerns regarding data ethics, it can help companies reach their goals and better understand their customers, the market, and how their company fits into it all.
Redeploy human capital
While common science fiction would have you believe that we are all on the verge of having our jobs taken away by machines, the reality of the situation is that machines are only able to perform the most monotonous and undesirable jobs. While we may well see the day when technology gives us a run for our money, in reality, we are still far from that moment. In all likelihood, we are closer to the kind of automation that everyone was so horrified about when Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in 1913 than to truly capable AI. Sure, technology is changing the workforce, but rather than taking away valuable jobs, machine learning and artificial intelligence reduce the amount of tedious work so that humans can take on more innovative, creative, and fulfilling projects.
Reduce error
We try our hardest, but every one of us has, at one point or another, entered the wrong information or forgotten an important step in something we were working on. It’s part of the human experience. By depending more on automation, we can reduce the number of errors, minimizing the amount of wasted time and money spent fixing mistakes. Anything from fraud detection, to notifications of incorrectly entered information, computers can detect things typically far outside the human capacity.
Customer satisfaction
Regardless of the industry, customer satisfaction is at the heart of any company’s success. It could be introducing chatbots to solve customer problems faster or providing customers with a quicker, more automated upselling and checkout option. Reducing any potential frustration for customers leads to better customer experiences and, therefore, customers who are more likely to continue using your company.
Use cases for AI and ML
Goals of AI in a business
Optimization of resource consumption
Automation of operational decisions and measures
Sustainable improvement in financial results through AI-powered services
Optimization
Sometimes you think you are getting a great deal, sometimes you think you are getting swindled, but most of the time, it’s pretty much a coin toss. AI helps create a more even playing field where you can see not only the cards of the other players but the cards of the whole casino.
Using AI for optimization lets companies know where to buy materials, how to produce products in the most efficient way possible, and how to get those products into their customers’ hands as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Automation
Instead of wasting time waiting for humans to complete menial tasks, your company’s workflow can be streamlined by automating those tasks. Tickets, requests, and many aspects of customer service can be done quicker and more efficiently with automation. By using ML to predict resolution times, you can also manage expectations and identify bottlenecks that inhibit your workflow. Similarly, if you have a customer request that needs to be handled quickly, it should be of the utmost importance. By training an NLP model to understand specific phrases or keywords, you can send the most important tickets to the front, ensuring that your customers are as happy as possible.
Financial improvement
Your company can save measurable amounts of money by reducing waste and minimizing errors. With optimization, better customer service, and the development of a better product through AI, your company can also make more money than ever before. As the pieces come together with some help from AI specialists, your company improves their financial situation on both ends, making AI implementation one of the more financially beneficial innovations & digitalization strategies.
So what should I do next?
While the next step might be dependent on your exact use cases, there are surely numerous other aspects of AI and ML you can continue to learn about. Regardless of where you are, the best first step is to consult a specialist to determine which technologies might be best suited for your company. From there, some possible topics might include:
Neural networks & deep learning
Evaluation metrics in machine learning
AI and cloud services
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