Five ways AI can be a force for good

It’s only recently that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning have become so prolific; partly due to the availability of the required computing power, but also down to the market maturity and accessibility of tooling. Fortunately for the channel, this means there are now various opportunities to take advantage of these new technologies for business. And AI can be useful to a company for various reasons.

 

Further automating business processes

Process automation tools have existed for many years but with the advent of AI, these tools can be taken to the next level - and used to do many more complex tasks, that would normally be the preserve of a human worker. AI can take on and automate various job roles, from low-skilled, semi-skilled and skilled worker roles to professional level skills such as legal contact reviews or executive assistants.

 

AI is finding its place in both operational and strategic business process management, leading to improved and innovative solutions. For example, Intelligent robotic process automation could be used to observe what people are actually doing - and then automate those patterns so employees don’t have to do error-prone redundant work. While machine learning could be applied during process execution to trigger new processes, reroute running processes - and make recommendations — for a next best action.

 

Innovating an existing design

AI has assisted in manufacturing processes for a little while now, with the computer modelling of real-world parts and products to understand how they would perform in practice. However, a major step forward is that AI is now designing the product in the first place.

 

This development is known as generative AI – and, much to the surprise of the data scientists, has created very organic looking parts which are stronger and more efficient than anything developed by a human. For example, AI has been used to design a support between two parts of a car, which design mirrors that of the human skeletal structure.

 

Innovating an existing methodology

AI is able to understand many moving parts, in near to real-time and the effect that changing one would have on another. This allows for method optimisation that goes far beyond what is possible and lowers the need for trial and error. This is particularly applicable in manufacturing or logistics.

 

Predictive and proactive security

Every time there’s a new threat we still wait for a human to detect it, for it to then be mitigated and a patch to be released. However, User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) and AI can assist by looking at patterns of human behaviour and then applying algorithms and statistical analysis to detect meaningful anomalies from those patterns - anomalies that indicate potential threats.

 

Companies no longer need to wait for patches to be released, IT professionals can look for trends, spikes and reoccurrences in behaviours and mitigate errors straight away. UBA and AI can make things work smarter - and not harder. 

 

Augmented intelligence

Augmented intelligence is an alternative conceptualisation of AI that focuses on its assistive role first and foremost - and emphasises the fact that it’s designed to enhance human intelligence rather than replace it. A sophisticated AI program may be capable of making a decision after analysing patterns in large data sets, but that decision is only as good as the data that human have provided in the first place. Augmented Intelligence reinforces the role human intelligence plays when using machine learning to solve problems.

 

In this way, AI can also be used to lower the number of repetitive or low business value tasks that a human worker has to do. For instance, AI personal assistants can book meetings, flights, hotels or automatically complete expenses - allowing the human more time to spend on work that directly effects the business.