What AI is & why it is highly relevant for companies (Part 2)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ubiquitous and, in different and similar ways, the future of business. While we have provided an overview of the basics of AI in the first part, we will now go into why AI is relevant for companies. Similarly complex as what artificial intelligence is and at times still elusive for many companies, the application areas of the technologies are also enormously diverse. To avoid drifting too far into the world of possibilities, let’s look at the tangible benefits and advantages that AI brings to businesses across industries. Soberly speaking, companies ultimately want to use AI to generate added value and gain competitive advantages.

Cost and productivity optimizations are two of the reasons why AI is highly relevant for companies

Contrary to the fearful (or even romantic) notions of many, which are probably not infrequently shaped by Hollywood and Co, AI is there to support and help people and companies. Companies can optimize processes with AI and use humans for more complex work and operations. Even if AI can independently recognize patterns in data, learn and improve itself, it is still the human who ultimately benefits. After all, what does the AI itself care much about, for example, when it structures an enormous amount of unstructured data or optimizes a timetable? It is the human being who also creates added value from this structured data by using it as a basis for further processes and projects, and by using it for analyses and security aspects.

Artificial intelligence as an optimal complement for humans and companies – and not vice versa

Deep business insights thanks to AI

That is the first point. One of the great strengths of AI is the analysis of huge amounts of data. It is the structuring of this data that gives companies deep insights in a variety of ways. Based on these insights, a whole range of different benefits emerge, including the following:

• Companies can make more efficient business decisions based on the structured data
• Companies can make use of the data to filter out customer preferences and improve the customer experience
• Companies can use the data to identify changes or trends early and act accordingly in virtually real-time
• Data can be used for industry-specific analytics, which can then enable corrections in business processes and provide cost savings

Productivity increases thanks to AI

Another important point is productivity increases that can be achieved thanks to AI. For example, even complex processes such as those in goods management can be largely automated. With automations of various business processes, productivity can be increased while killing two birds with one stone with the combination of AI and humans:

• Business processes become significantly more efficient with automation
• Human capacity is freed up, allowing it to be used for more essential work

Minimizing errors thanks to AI

An additional point why AI is highly relevant for companies is from a security perspective. AI is on-site around the clock and throughout the year with the exact same precision, reducing errors to a minimum. Moreover, thanks to machine learning, possible security gaps or potential sources of errors can be detected and reported in advance, allowing humans to intervene and prevent worse.

AIaaS as a valuable solution for many companies

AIaaS – Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service

Because the spectrum of AI technologies is so diverse, the numerous possibilities for companies are understandably sometimes overwhelming. With AIaaS, i.e. “Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service”, based on the common term SaaS, the trend for external AI solutions is then also great according to a study by Deloitte. This makes perfect sense for many companies, especially small and medium-sized ones. Logically, they usually lack the internal resources to deal with all the possibilities. AIaaS cleverly circumvents this problem and still allows companies to integrate AI and benefit from the relevant advantages.