
AI experts outline these key areas where AI technologies can improve business operations and services.
As organizations increase their use of AI technologies within their operations, they are realizing tangible benefits that are expected to drive significant financial value.
Eighty-seven percent of organizations believe AI and machine learning will help them increase revenue, drive operational efficiency, and improve customer experiences, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan’s “Global State of AI, 2022” report.
These are just a few of the benefits AI can offer.
Here are 12 advantages the technology brings to organizations across various industry sectors.
1. Better decisions
Organizations are increasingly using AI to gain insights into their data, or in today’s business jargon, to make “data-driven decisions.” In doing so, they find that they are effectively making better, more accurate decisions rather than decisions based on individual instincts or intuitions tainted by personal biases and preferences.
As an example, Kavita Ganesan, an AI consultant, strategist, and founder of consulting firm Opinosis Analytics, pointed to a company that used AI to sort through survey responses from its 42,000 employees. The technology analyzed narrative responses and presented summarized results, an approach that allowed company officials to effectively understand what workers wanted most rather than offering them options to sort through by check-box choices.
2. Increases in efficiency and productivity
Efficiency and productivity gains are two other big benefits organizations gain from using AI, said Adnan Masood, chief AI architect at UST, a digital transformation solutions company.
Masood said AI enables organizations to handle tasks at a volume and speed that humans simply can’t match, whether they’re using AI for search or to analyze data for insights, create software code or run specific business processes.
Not only does AI work at a scale beyond human capability, Masood noted, but it also removes time-consuming manual tasks from workers — a productivity gain that allows them to perform higher-level tasks that only humans can do. He pointed to the use of AI in software development as one such example, highlighting the fact that AI can create test data to verify code, freeing up developers to focus on more engaging work.
This allows organizations to minimize the costs associated with performing mundane, repeatable tasks that can be performed through technology while maximizing the talent of their human capital.
3. Increased speed of business
As fast as businesses are moving in this digital age, AI is helping them move even faster, said Seth Earley, author of The AI-Powered Enterprise and CEO of Earley Information Science. “It’s about speeding up the clock of the enterprise,” he said. Essentially, AI enables shorter cycles and reduces the time it takes to get from one stage to the next, such as from design to commercialization, and that shorter timeline, in turn, delivers a better and more immediate return on investment.
4. New capabilities and expansion of the business model
Executives can use AI to expand the business model, experts said, noting that organizations are seeing new opportunities as they deploy data, analytics and intelligence across the enterprise.
For example, autonomous vehicle companies could use the vast amounts of data they are collecting to identify new revenue streams related to insurance, while an insurance company could apply AI to its vast data stores to feed into fleet management.
5. Personalized customer services and experiences
AI analyzes and learns from data to create highly personalized experiences and services, said Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group.
He said the most visible examples of this come from the consumer world, as streaming services, such as Netflix, and retailers use intelligent systems to study purchasing patterns, individual consumer data, and broader data sets to determine what each customer prefers at any given time to suit their personal style, interests, and needs.
However, AI offers that personalization in many other areas, such as in health care, where it personalizes treatments, and in work environments to meet an employee’s individual needs.
6. Improved services
AI creates interactions with technology that are easier, more intuitive, more accurate and therefore better in every way, said Mike Mason, director of AI at consultancy Thoughtworks.
He cited a real estate site that employs generative AI so that users can refine their searches on property listings through conversational queries rather than clicking through boxes.
“AI understands an unstructured query and understands unstructured data,” Mason explained. In other words, the technology can analyze a user’s request even when it’s presented in plain, conversational language; analyze all the descriptive elements within each listing, including narrative notes added by real estate agents; and present the user with a finely tuned, highly accurate list of properties that meets their requirements.
7. Improved monitoring
According to experts, AI’s ability to receive and process massive amounts of data in real time means that organizations can deploy near-instant monitoring capabilities to alert them to problems, recommend actions, and in some cases initiate a response.
For example, AI can use information collected by devices on factory equipment to identify problems and predict necessary maintenance. This prevents annoying breakdowns and costly maintenance work performed because it is necessary and unscheduled.
AI monitoring capabilities can be effective in other areas, such as in enterprise cybersecurity operations where large amounts of data need to be analyzed and understood.
8. Better quality and reduction of human error
Organizations can expect reduced errors and increased compliance with established standards when they add artificial intelligence technologies to processes. Furthermore, when AI and machine learning are integrated with a technology such as robotic process automation, which automates repetitive rules-based tasks, the combination not only speeds up processes and reduces errors, but can also train itself to improve itself and take on broader tasks.
As a result of that error reduction and increased quality, “AI improves the value proposition,” Earley said.
Using AI in financial reconciliation, for example, almost always delivers error-free results, whereas that same reconciliation when handled, even in part, by human employees is prone to error.
9. Better talent management
Companies are using AI to improve many aspects of talent management, from streamlining the hiring process to eradicating bias in corporate communications. Moreover, AI-enabled processes not only save companies on hiring costs, but can also impact workforce productivity by successfully sourcing, screening, and identifying top-notch candidates. As natural language processing tools have improved, companies are also using chatbots to provide candidates with a personalized experience and mentor employees. Additionally, AI tools can measure employee sentiment, identify and retain high-performing employees, determine equitable pay, and deliver more personalized and engaging work experiences with fewer requirements on boring and repetitive tasks.
10. More innovation
As workers at all levels become more comfortable and confident working with AI, experts said they are starting to use AI tools to help them be more creative and innovative.
In his book, Ganesan described how a restaurant chain used the technology to power a mobile app that lets customers craft their own cocktails based on their mood and food choices, with the tool preparing the recipe and then sending it to a human bartender to mix and serve.
Other industries use AI to support R&D activities, such as in the health care sector for drug discovery work and in the consumer goods sector for the creation of new products.
11. Greater profitability
As they use AI in more areas of the business, from personalizing services to helping manage risk and supporting innovation, organizations will see increased productivity, lower costs, greater efficiency and possibly new growth opportunities.
Taken together, that can lead to increased profitability, said Sreekar Krishna, U.S. AI leader at professional services firm KPMG. “On the revenue side, its potential is exponential — you can keep growing as long as you bring value to customers.”
12. Industry-specific improvements
In addition to the benefits listed above, AI can drive the following industry-specific improvements:
- Retailers can use AI to better target their marketing efforts, develop a more efficient supply chain, and better calculate pricing for optimal returns. In retail businesses, AI helps predict customer requirements and appropriate staffing levels.
- The pharmaceutical industry can use the technology to perform drug discovery data analysis and predictions that cannot be done with conventional technologies.
- The financial industry can use AI to strengthen its fraud detection efforts.
It’s important to remember that as companies find ways to use AI to gain a competitive advantage, they also face challenges. Concerns include AI bias, government regulation of AI, managing the data needed for machine learning projects, and talent shortages. Additionally, financial gains can be difficult to achieve if the talent and infrastructure to implement AI are not in place.