Business is good. And I’m not only talking about you, my amazing clients. But generally, here in Denver, business is really good. You’ve likely felt it while sitting on I-25 in the ever-increasing traffic. Or perhaps you’ve noticed our new state bird, the crane? There are 13 million square feet of commercial, industrial, and residential new buildings under construction. Have you been flooded with qualified applicants for listed positions? These are all indicators of our strong economy.
At last week’s State of Small Business event, the topic was Artificial Intelligence, or AI, and how it’s helping businesses. AI is not all Terminator or Star Wars, either. When you get on a website and there’s a little chatbot in the corner offering to help or answer questions, that’s AI. There’s rarely a person sitting there keying in the answers. It’s all AI. Similarly, the auto-pilot function in airline travel, Facebook image recognition, and your Google map are AI use cases.
Some other ways AI is impacting businesses include:
- Facilitating the development of complicated medications in clean rooms
- The hiring of employees
- Improving productivity by facilitating automated scheduling
- Extracting data from images and developing mobile apps to more effectively communicate and market to a target demographic
Of course, with every technological advance, come the inevitable pitfalls and risks. While a lot of people fear they will lose their jobs, the reality is that there will be two new jobs for every job lost. The key is to be open to change and continuing to research how to partner with AI implementation strategies to help with the change. Leaving major decisions up to AI is tricky and demands not only buy in from key players but an implicit level of trust and an ability to adapt. Not to mention the whetted appetites of frightening cyber criminals and hackers.
AI can help business productivity levels, utilize customer data, and improve our experiences online and elsewhere. Where do you see it impacting your business? Check out this TED talk about AI and why it’s being called the next Industrial Revolution.
