Interested in Building Your Own AI? Here’s How to Get Started
If you want to improve your business then you have to go digital. And among all the technology available on the market, it’s artificial intelligence (AI) that’s making the biggest contribution to how businesses are changing. Corporate leaders are shelling out over $5 million every year on AI projects, and the number tends to increase the more interwoven with technology the industry is. So, are you interested in building your own digital assistant? Here’s how to get started.
Identify your problem
AI has a lot of uses. As such, before you build one, you first have to determine what your problem is and how AI can help. For example, healthcare professionals use AI’s deep-learning algorithms to more accurately diagnose diseases and serious illnesses, reducing the recovery cycle for patients. AI is the intelligence behind PCB routing software, which integrates the best tools for a more unified circuit design. This ensures that manufacturers always follow the ASME and IPC standards, lessening the chances of a defective product. Other industries like retail and automotive use AI to improve customer experiences, UI, and more. As long as you know what you want your AI to do exactly, programming it becomes much easier.
Choose a platform
It’s no secret that AI solutions for businesses are costly. After all, it takes a lot of expertise to navigate the ins-and-outs of AI design. This is why companies are turning to no-code and low-code platforms to create their AIs. As their name suggests, no-code refers to software that enables you to create software with no programming knowledge. Web builders like Squarespace and app makers like Bubble are some examples of it. Everything is built-in; you just have to drag and drop the objects. While easy, they’re very difficult to customize and have little unique functionality. If you want an AI tailored to your business needs, then the best solution is to go low-code.
Low-code platforms like Mendix are very much like traditional programming software, with the exception that most of the assets come in visual blocks containing lines of code. You’ll need knowledge of the language that you want to use, of course, but only to understand what blocks do. Most of the time, you’ll be dragging and dropping blocks to create your AI. It’s more efficient and beginner-friendly. In fact, our low-code platform has an AI of its own called Mendix Assist. Mendix Assist can provide you next-step suggestions and other expert recommendations to guide you through the building process. You can also take the extra leap and learn advanced programming for yourself. After all, since everything is still written in code, you can edit the AI program in any way that you like.
Test your AI
Once you have your AI built, it’s time to test it. Present it with new information (usually called a “development set”) and see if it’s performing the tasks you want it to. If you see that it needs a major overhaul or some fine-tuning, bring it back to the coding problem and trace the problem. If you’re at a loss or a bit uncomfortable with tampering with some of the codes, you can always hire a developer to help. Unlike the cost of building an AI from scratch, hiring talent near the end of the development process is much cheaper.
Building your own AI doesn’t have to be expensive. As long as you know what you want your AI to do, patient enough to learn the basics of programming, and work on a platform that will assist you all the way, a fully developed AI is not out of reach.
Written for Mendix.com
by Eve Richards
