3 Companies Using AI to Make the World Better
What Artificial Intelligence Could Mean for Purpose-Drive Business
Consider this opening to a report completed by the Pew Research Center, which canvassed nearly 2,000 experts in various fields on what artificial intelligence (AI) could mean for the future of work:
“The vast majority of respondents to the 2014 Future of the Internet canvassing anticipate that robotics and artificial intelligence will permeate wide segments of daily life by 2025, with huge implications for a range of industries such as health care, transport and logistics, customer service, and home maintenance. But even as they are largely consistent in their predictions for the evolution of technology itself, they are deeply divided on how advances in AI and robotics will impact the economic and employment picture over the next decade.”
We have a follow-up question: What does it mean for the future of purposeful, meaningful business?
Other insights are asking similar questions, including this report made at the World Economic Forum on how AI can help solve pressing environmental problems and this look by NPR at how people feel about their jobs being done by machines.
Here are some stories that show how entrepreneurs are putting AI to work for social good.
Flat-Fee Home Insurance
Lemonade Insurance is a New York- and Israel-based home- and rental-insurance startup that launched less than two years ago. The firm charges a flat fee to its customers: “We use artificial intelligence and chatbots to deliver insurance and handle claims,” says Yael Wissner-Levy, head of communications and content at the Certified B Corp.
The use of AI and bots minimizes paperwork and speeds the claims process for renters and homeowners. Last month, Lemonade secured $120 million in funding in a Series C round led by SoftBank, one of the world’s biggest technology firms. This is the largest venture investment to date in a benefit corporation and is yet another marker for the coming fundamental shift in our capital markets as investors and committed entrepreneurs recognize that the old way of doing business will not satisfy workers and consumers in the 21st century.
The new funds will be used to expand into global markets in the new year. And, as a benefit corporation, the funding will expand Lemonade’s positive social impact. By taking a fixed fee from premiums, the rest is geared toward paying out claims. In essence, Lemonade treats premiums as if they were still the policyholders’ money and returns unclaimed remainders in the annual “Giveback.” Giveback is a unique feature of Lemonade, where each year leftover money is donated to causes their policyholders care about.
Learn more about the impact of this large-scale investment in a benefit corp, and the ways Lemonade is helping its policyholders give back.
Merit-Based Hiring
“Blendoor is artificial intelligence and people analytics that mitigate unconscious bias, starting with hiring — which basically means that, understanding that people suck at judging other people, we are building technology that enables companies to see the true hireability of a diverse set of candidates, and we use analytics to help them identify where there may be bias happening throughout the hiring process,” says Blendoor founder Stephanie Lampkin.
After working in Silicon-Valley tech, Lampkin wasn’t surprised that when Google and several other tech companies released their diversity numbers a few years ago, the numbers were “abysmal”: 2 percent black, 2 percent Latino, 30 percent female. Lampkin didn’t buy the argument that it was a “pipeline problem.” After coming up with the idea for Blendoor at a hackathon, she spent two months building the first version of the app.
Despite using AI and tech to help solve diversity in hiring problems, Lampkin has concerns about the future: “In many ways, they are creating technology that is eliminating jobs, whether they like to own up to it or not. It’s only going to grow exponentially. It will become more and more the responsibility of high-gross startups and tech companies to recognize the impact they’re having from a social perspective, and to put measures in place to counteract it. … In Silicon Valley, everyone is super bullish on AI, AR [automated reasoning] and VR [virtual reality], all these ways that machines are going to replace a lot of mundane tasks and improve our day-to-day lives. These are marginal improvements to our existence, and oftentimes reduce human-to-human contact, which I think will have negative long-term effects.”
Learn more about how Blendoor works and Lampkin’s views on the future in this interview with Conscious Company on B the Change. Plus, don’t miss this free guide from B Lab about ways to inclusively grow your workforce.
More Connected Workplace Learning
Algorithms have been around for thousands of years and are an essential and critical element behind AI. Algorithms are structured, step-by-step instructions — and computers are excellent at using algorithms at exceptional speeds. Scientists discovered some time ago that computers are not only fast with the calculations, but that they can also “learn” from them. With the ability to scan vast amounts of data, process calculations and assess probabilities at lightning speeds, machine learning is quickly proving to be an incredible advancement that will impact our lives tremendously.
And, it could have a big impact on workplace learning — the ongoing leadership and skills development that takes place within a company. Jennifer Riebli, who works at management and staffing consulting firm Future State, shares three areas of workplace learning she believes will be dramatically changed by AI in the coming years:
1. Personalized and more effective learning experiences.
2. Training reinforcement.
3. Effectiveness and ROI measures.
“All of these advancements free up time for a learning and development team to focus on human interactions with employees and think of new innovations and ideas. The best strategy is to determine where computers and systems can automate and take on the tedious tasks and analytics,” Riebli writes. Read Riebli’s insights in her post on B the Change.
Read more stories of people using business as a force for good in B the Change, or sign up to receive the B the Change Weekly newsletter for more stories like the one above, delivered straight to your inbox.
