A new definition of AI for the rest of us

AI has risen as the buzzword of year (behind ML) and almost every company and every person is sprinkling it on everything imaginable. Interest is at an all-time high as this picture shows.

Google keyword traffic

There’s huge promise, a lot of substance and a lot of hype.

I (and SalesTing) have incorporated elements of AI and ML in our products though that’s the last thing we talk about.

In the past few months, especially after the AI/ML Conference we hosted at Georgia Tech in May, I’ve had the realization that AI will evolve into many different avatars based on the industry/vertical it applies to. The generic definition is only as useful as “software” which has such varied meaning based on the user and industry.

For our industry, sales & marketing, I refer to AI as Alignment Intelligence.

I’ve always struggled with the ‘Artificial’ in the traditional definition of AI so replacing that with ‘Alignment’ makes it more human.

Thanks to Ryan Hollenbeck as this realization has come after many, many conversations we’ve had on this topic and his perspective that it’s not about how sophisticated the technology is, but what it’ll do for us humans.

Thanks to Kirsten Kliphouse for her sage advice. A few months back I was all excited about buying a “.ai” domain name and sprinkling “AI” all over our website when she reminded me that there’s already Super-Duper-Deep-Learning fatigue in the world.

Thanks to Tami McQueen who’s shining a light on this new definition of AI in an upcoming article that will be featured in one of the biggest publications on the planet.