Guide. A Small Business Guide to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Transcription

1 Guide A Small Business Guide to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

2 Contents Introduction... 3 What is AI?... 4 How can small businesses use AI today?... 5 What are the key benefits of using AI?... 6 How do you start to use Artificial Intelligence in your business?... 7 What does the future hold for Artificial Intelligence?... 8 Your AI checklist... 9 Further information Page 2 of 10

3 Introduction Voice recognition for mobile banking, call centre customer support, online shopping behaviour analysis, credit card fraud prevention and language translation. If you have used any of these services or systems, you have already experienced AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its impact in changing business operations and their delivery of services to consumers. According to research by the Economist s Intelligence Unit, over 40 per cent of businesses surveyed believe that AI will disrupt their businesses and begin to replace humans for some tasks over the next five years. AI will be actively implemented in their companies within the next three years, according to 75 per cent of surveyed executives. Another three per cent say this is already the case. The pace will remain the quickest in North America (active implementation in 84 per cent of firms there) with retail being an active adopter (again 84 per cent of firms in the sector) in implementing some form of AI-based system in their businesses. The rapid development and deployment of AI is a reaction to the changing markets that businesses now find themselves within. They must reduce costs, improve their efficiency and deliver an everexpanding number of services to their customers to remain profitable. AI enables many processes to be either completely automated, or vastly reduces the level of human intervention that is needed. For even the smallest business AI is within reach. The key to effectively using AI is to understand what AI could deliver to your business, but also be aware of its limitation. AI is the new buzz phrase, but it s important to place any implementation of AI within your business using a clearly defined goal. From improving customer service to deep insights gained from AI data analysis, your business will need to pay attention to what AI could offer to remain relevant in your market, fully supportive of your customers and profitable over the long term. Page 3 of 10

4 What is AI? AI is used as an umbrella term to group a number of technologies together. The most well-known AI technology is machine learning. Here systems can improve their performance if they are given more information. A good example is online credit card fraud prevention. Your bank s AI system learns your spending habits and when a payment appears that doesn t fit the profile the AI has, it alerts the bank to a possible fraud. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is another practical AI system. Here, computers can understand human language. When you call your bank, or energy supplier, in the past you would have had to enter your account number manually, and step through often long automated switchboards to find the help you need. Today you simply speak your answers. This is AI in action. Automation is also a major component of AI. All businesses are looking for efficiencies with their systems to reduce costs. Removing humans from many of the repetitive tasks they currently do, is a major drive for AI in all businesses. Here AI bots can help business run much more efficiently, as they act at as a digital assistant. A recent example is the Sage AI chatbot that can help business better manage its finances and tax. AI is also having a huge impact on marketing. The closer your business can tailor its marketing and advertising to precise groups or individuals, the more successful it will be. AI can assess and analyse massive quantities of data to understand what motivates customers to buy. With this information in hand, business could better develop new services and products. Paul Clarke, Chief Technology Officer at Ocado, said: AI has to be the centre of everything we do now. I am sending that message to all of the technology teams in Ocado. Previously the message would have been Collect all data and make sure everything is measurable. The new message is: Collect the data and make sure everything is architected for AI from day one. Page 4 of 10

5 How can small businesses use AI today? There are many options for your business to start using AI systems today including: Amy Developed by x.ai, Amy is a personal assistant bot that can schedule meetings for you. Amy can remove many of the chores of setting up meetings and then managing the inevitable rescheduling that happens. Gluru This smart to-do list could help you manage your calendar, events and meetings. The bot is intelligent enough to gather all the information you need based on what the meeting or event is about. Tamr If your business has data that is held on different systems, Tamr can help you integrate your data together to reveal potential ways you could develop your business s products or services. Recorded Future Your business could come under cyberattack at any minute. This AI automatically watches for potential threats to your company and its customers. DigitalGenius This adds a layer of AI to your contact centre or your customer service team. Using predictive automation, this AI could help your customer services improve its responses through better targeted information. SalesforceIQ If your business already uses a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, SalesforceIQ adds AI components that could enhance your CRM with deeper insights into customer behaviour. Often, small businesses will use multiple AI systems or services together to create and/or improve the overall efficiency of their enterprises. In most cases, you can test the systems first hand to see what impact they could have on your business and your own management skills. Page 5 of 10

6 What are the key benefits of using AI? For small businesses, the main gain when using AI is improved efficiency and reduced costs. AI can be viewed in the same way as using data analysis applications, CRMs or automating back office processes. AI is different in that it can improve the services it delivers by learning. Using AI could offer your business: Improvements in day-to-day operations Targeted marketing with deeper insights into customer buying habits Robust security protection from cyberattack A level of automation that could improve systems performance Reduced costs via automation and efficiency gains Data analysis to reveal new potential markets for your business s goods or services More efficient customer service that leads to greater brand loyalty Within a competitive market place, any cost reduction, new customer communications channel or improvement in customer service support a business makes is welcome, but there is also a practical application: AI could help business find cost savings, make more intimate connections with customers, and help vastly improve how a business is managed. Page 6 of 10

7 How do you start to use Artificial Intelligence in your business? As with any changes you want to make to your business, ask yourself what your goals are for AI? This is vital so you can see whether the AI systems you have deployed are working. Often, you can start to use an AI instantly. Many AIs are apps that you install on your mobile devices, or are online services that you can access with any device connected to the Internet. Gluru is a good example of an AI you simply download from the app stores. Personal assistants like Amy, Niki.ai [ and Pana [ offer business owners the chance to radically improve their efficiency when running their companies. Most small businesses however, will look for specific tasks or processes within their business to use AI with. The use of AI bots has been growing rapidly, as they are relatively easy to install and maintain. There are many services that in effect allow you to build your own AI bot for specific purposes. Services such as Chatfuel [ Converse [ and Zendesk [ are all designed to help businesses improve their customer services. All these bot creation services enable you to set them up to look for specific patterns of data. Your business could create, for instance, a bot to look for the most often asked questions about your business s services or products. This information is then fed back to your research and development teams or a bot could be used within your Facebook pages to better match goods or services to specific groups of followers. The AI in this example could go much further and then automatically ask other relevant questions while it is interacting with your customer to gain even more insight into their buying habits, thoughts and feeling about your business, and what they would like to see improved all without any human intervention. Page 7 of 10

8 What does the future hold for Artificial Intelligence? There is little doubt that businesses large and small will have to use more AI in the future to remain competitive. As the customer relationship deepens, human only customer services or sales teams won t be able to understand and then act on the torrents of data they will be collecting. Here, AI comes into its own, as its natural environment is masses of data, which it can help your business make sense of. Economist s Intelligence Unit concluded: If AI realises its business potential in the next 3-5 years, there is little question that it will lead to significant improvements in processes, as well as in the precision and reliability, and possibly the speed, of operational business decisions. AI is also more likely to enhance security and improve risk management than to weaken them, although some have concerns about AI s potential misuse. Your business s customers will also become more aware of and relaxed about using AI systems as they start using them in their daily lives. Systems that may already be familiar are mobile banking apps on smartphones, home automation systems such as Amazon s Alexa, and smart assistants on phones and tablets such as Apple s Siri. Being comfortable with AI systems then enables your business to innovate using AI features like voice recognition that are already familiar. It s AI when used with customer relationship management that is likely to have the most profound impact on your business in the short term. Small businesses especially need to be agile. The masses of data they collect about their customers can be difficult to analyse, to find value and meaning. AI systems are likely to become as common as your accounting application. Page 8 of 10

9 Your AI checklist With AI services rapidly expanding, your business should carefully plan how it will use AI. Follow this checklist to ensure your business makes the most of its investment in AI: 1. Plan your deployment It is critical to have a clearly laid out plan for how your business wants to use AI. The investment you make needs all the due attention you would use when making any change to your business systems. 2. Can you act on the AI s recommendations? If you plan to use an AI to look for patterns in customer data for instance, does your business have the additional processes to exploit that information when the AI reveals it? 3. Consider the impact on your staff In some cases, an AI can offer a level of automation that would lead to your business requiring fewer staff. What impact could this have on the morale of the remaining workforce? 4. Are your logistical systems able to cope? Often, AI will be used within sales teams. If a rapid expansion of orders was to occur, could your business cope? 5. When things go wrong The wholesale automation of your customer services may be your ultimate-goal, but when queries arise that your AI can t handle, your business will need human staff to help. 6. How will you build on your AI? Your AI is a learning machine. Ask yourself how you want your use of AI to expand in the future. To gain experience of how AI could be used in your business, systems such as Amy are a great place to start. You can see how an AI operates and what practical help they can be. All businesses no matter their size will have to use some form of AI to ensure they remain efficient and profitable. Take your time to learn about AI and its potential before committing your business s resources to these systems. Page 9 of 10

10 Further information Artificial Intelligence in the Real World _in_the_real_world_1.pdf How AI will impact marketing and the customer experience How artificial intelligence could transform your business Page 10 of 10