With applications in everything from cybersecurity to human resources, artificial intelligence has the power to bring changes that will shift not only entire industries, but entire global economies as well.
Change may not be easy, but it is certainly inevitable — the explosion of technological innovation in recent years is proof enough that all markets, economies, and divisions of labor evolve. Artificial intelligence (AI) in particular has experienced significant growth in just a short period of time, with self-driving cars and supercomputers already finishing the slow, but steady transition from obscure tech blogs to national newspapers.
And while autonomous vehicles represent the glamorous potential of AI to the everyday consumer, they do little to capture the promise AI offers companies and industries across the world. As enterprises start to adopt these technologies in full, we can expect to see significant impacts on a global scale.
Predicting Failures
Researchers at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health are exploring the use of algorithms to evaluate a patient’s risk of heart disease; specifically, the scientists are curious to see whether the AI can predict disease simply from listening to patients report their symptoms. In the same way, VentureBeat argues, IT departments may be able to use AI algorithms to monitor and review log files, predicting a system malfunction much more quickly and efficiently than any human ever could.
The same could very well hold true for programming as well. Improving AI means that massive neural networks that “understand” the intention of any piece of code will become essential tools for programmers, helping them develop solutions to increasingly complex problems.
Cybersecurity
And speaking of problems, one of the greatest issues currently facing companies (and nations) is the security of their data. From the credit card hack on Target customers, to Yahoo’s information breach, to the most-recent DNC leaks, cyber attacks have quickly become a serious and all-too-common threat.
Artificial intelligence’s ability to learn patterns across networks, devices, and systems (as well as their users) holds especially powerful promise, both in recognizing and stopping an ongoing attack, and also in identifying vulnerabilities in vast amounts of code. Already AI security bots are proving themselves superior to their human counterparts, as Defense One explains in an August blog post.
Sophisticated cybersecurity is becoming especially important as both enterprises and individuals are more connected to more devices (and each other) than ever before. The Internet of Things continues to grow, and the amount of information that companies will have to process as a result of that growth will require intelligent solutions that can track and learn from billions and billions of data points.
Small Scale Changes
However, complex cognitive computing and machine learning are not the only forms of artificial intelligence, and implementing AI on smaller scales can still make a big difference, according to the Harvard Business Review. Whether it’s improving data mining or streamlining “structured, repeatable tasks and processes,” there is no shortage of places for companies to implement AI.
For example, Allstate Business Insurance used AI tools to develop a virtual assistant called ABIe to free up their flooded internal call centers. ABIe can now answer the questions of some 100,000 Allstate employees, and will soon answer consumer questions as well.
No matter the scale, artificial intelligence will continue to play increasingly important roles for companies of all shapes and sizes. Consider the role that AI is already playing in marketing, where cutting-edge autonomous marketing platforms like Albert from Adgorithms are enhancing both the quality and scale of branded campaigns. The sooner organizations adopt these technologies, the more they have to gain.
