Why companies should embrace AI?
It’s been a few years already since digital transformation has entered into companies daily vocabulary — and it is still on-going! New jobs, new skills and progressively every field has been affected this digitalization. Meanwhile AI is taking a larger place in this digital transformation and everyone is talking about it. Even countries are creating frameworks and initiatives to encourage the growth of AI! For example, at the beginning of 2017, France started to deploy its strategy regarding AI and trying to attract the talents that will be able to create a meaningful use to this technology. If we examine AI with a business point of view, it is becoming a crucial strategic lever for growth and for elaborating new Marketing strategies. Recent studies from the McKinsey Global Institute and the Boston Consulting Group show that only roughly “20% of companies have implemented AI technology in a meaningful way”. 2018 will be determining for companies that will be able (or not) to successfully use AI to strengthen their business strategies.
Tech companies are investing larges sums to have the competitive edge on AI. Amazon invested around $228 million this year, Google put $130 in new AI jobs and Microsoft is also in the race with $75 million according to the research firm Paysa. And progressively every field will be affected. It is the next digital revolution.
This process does not come without any fears though. It is common to see articles about how AI is destroying jobs. While this all seems rather scary for some, please bear with us! While AI is not advanced enough to ever truly substitute human teams in companies, the fears are legitimate. The good news is, however, that AI will create more jobs than it will make disappear. By 2020, AI will create 2.3 million jobs while 1.8 million would be destroyed.
Actually, AI is great to drive your business strategy in 2018 and beyond! Here is why.
Empower your Marketing strategy
In the era of social media and an overwhelming flow of information everywhere, it can hard for brands to stand out. It can be challenging to actually to optimize where you content is pushed and target the right people. Machine Learning algorithms can help to identify more clearly customer segments and how likely they are to engage — or not- to certain campaigns. Moreover, those algorithms will also match more efficiently products with potential customers. Imagine having a limited stock of a product. Thanks to Machine Learning, you can promote this product to people which are the less likely to return the item. Machine Learning is a great way to apply SMART strategies (Specific / Measurable/ Achievable/ Realistic/ Timely) to your company. It gives access to new data and a way to automatize data analysis. We can obtain more data and understand it better at the same time, which is a Marketer’s dream come true. Thus, Machine Learning helps to create customer profiles online et offline based on geo-location, how they interact with the products, psychographic factors, past purchases … Brands can now have a very precise idea of who are their customers online but also offline thanks to in-store analytics. Check out our previous article “Ways Marketers can use artificial intelligence” to learn more!
Retailers and malls will have more tangible data to take decisions and it will help to manage their business. For example, if you are a mall manager, you would want to implement this kind of solution to optimize space management and negotiations. You can offer brands more insight on which areas are popular, which are not and negotiate location prices thanks to heat maps as well as the customer’s profile based on gender and age all thanks to cameras.
Empower HR strategy and improve employee happiness
Brands need to take care of their employer image as much as their products. Obviously talent is key. Attracting that talent is the first step, but then retaining it can quite be challenging I this competitive market. Companies will make efforts to improve their employee’s happiness. To do so, Machine learning can help! It can become a tool which can change they way your employees come to work and your HR strategy.
Employee happiness at work: companies are starting to promoting flexible work schedules and allow their employee to work from home. However, working from home can be challenging especially if you still have meetings to attend. Of course, employees can use skype or any other video call software but it can compromise their privacy at home. Pictures in the background, children or even if their significant other are there, it can be helpful to have something to help them feel more comfortable to work from home and still participate in video calls. For example, we offer a plugin that will detect where the face is in the image flow and then blur the background, making only the head visible to the caller(s). Our product is called VisioBlur and it’s easy to install. You can choose a soft Blur around the face or an opaque background. It can also be a great tool for video interviews with candidates. Recruiters can use VisioBlur to help protect the privacy of the interviewees, and it will make them feel more comfortable as well as improve the employer brand.
On a HR strategy level, AI can be a great investment to create recruitment methods with reduced human bias that will help to hire more talent disregard gender or any other trait that can be discriminating. AI can be programmed to ignore a candidate’s background and also suggest more reliable and relevant questions to interviewers. Of course, AI is not meant to take out the human side of recruiting but compensating some weaknesses a human may have while recruiting someone and reinforcing the positive aspects. Ai can also help analyze resumes by looking past keywords and help to write jobs descriptions to help make sure the language will appeal to all types of individuals.
AI can also relieve HR employees from some repetitive tasks such as answering to the same questions over and over again. A Chabot, can drastically be time-saving for HR departments so they can focus on more important issues and be more available to to engage with employees and address their problems.
Employee safety through image recognition
Obviously employee safety should a priority and AI can help improve this. Artificial Intelligence can help assess risks and notify teams if security standards are not met. A great example would be on construction sites. Thanks to cameras, the flow of images can be analyzed to be sure construction workers wear their helmets and other protective gear. If it not the case, the teams are notified of this danger and must correct it immediately. Another option is to use image recognition to look for any mechanical defects, spillage, leaks or any risky happenings in factories and buildings. Image recognition can do wonders!
As discussed all through this article, AI can be useful in a number of different areas and companies should definitely continue to invest as it will become the norm in the years to come. Whether your business wants to implement AI in order to obtain meaningful data or to to tasks too time-consuming for the average worker, the possibilities are almost endless. These solutions should be implemented with privacy in mind, should it be either for employees or the general public. Choosing the right company for these solutions it essential, one which offers privacy by design solutions (like Wassa!).
Do you want to know more about WASSA?
Wassa is an Innovative Digital Agency expert in Indoor Location and Computer Vision. Whether you are looking to help your customers to find their way in a building, enhance the user experience of your products, collect data about your customers or analyze the human traffic and behavior in a location, our Innovation Lab brings scientific expertise to design the most adapted solution to your goals.
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