Don't Be So Serious

Today, I want to look at some use cases for AI in the context of a business tool. And as a case in point, I want to highlight the fact that I am using Generative AI tools to write this article.

Here are a few areas I want to mention where major efficiencies are brought by AI:

Automation

While tasks have always been automated whenever possible, AI brings improvements in the ability to be more predictive and automatically adaptive. What this means is that while an AI based automation still needs to be monitored and maintained, the fact that an AI can process vast amounts of data very fast, enables the automation algorithm to provide predictive information on what will happen in the future, and because these models can “learn”, the automation can adapt itself as parameters change.

Think about a robotic assembly line, the algorithm can speed or slow down the line or modify how the robots operate; it can also provide a cost analysis and provide suggestions where resources should be deployed to be of better use. Similarly, on a network of servers and apps, the algorithm can figure how to better route traffic to them or bring up and down servers to better cope with traffic – similar to what AWS already offers, but instead of reacting, in a more predictive and proactive fashion, providing a better experience for users.

Another use of AI based automation is cybersecurity, which we will cover below.

Generative content

I do agree that Generative AI is disruptive; however, I think this disruption opens a variety of opportunities for content creation. I do want to emphasize that you still need humans to take advantage of these opportunities.

You can ask a generative AI to produce content of a particular type or style, text, images, music, etc. Again, parts of this script have been produced with Generative AI tools. But … there is the rub, parts of this script. I am still writing most of it and tailoring the generated output to represent my voice. It has dramatically sped up the process.

Similarly, you can use Generative AI to assist in creating marketing creatives, copy and music for ad campaigns. It can be used to double check your training manuals for inconsistencies. Or create those training manuals altogether. Another example is to create more compelling presentations.  It can be paired with any existing content to generate more of it, or derivative content. It can be used to generate additional ideas of what content to create.

The possibilities are endless. One important point is that it is still a tool and humans need to use the tool.

What Generative AI does at the end of the day is really two things:

1) it helps professionals create better and more compelling stories- whatever the medium may be (photography, scripts, music, etc.,) and

2) it provides easy to use and understand tools for consumers to explore new avenues of expression.

Personalized Customer Experience and Recommendations

As your app, website, game, marketing campaigns, or any elements of your digital presence interact with consumers you are collecting data. This data can be used to understand your consumers’ needs and behaviors and cater to them. There are some basic AI models like churn, which enables you to know who will churn in the next few weeks, or conversion, which identifies potential converters, or pLTV, which enables you to understand you future LTV. These are basic behavioral models. If you pair these models to Generative AI models you can start providing personalized experiences to your consumers, in turn, retain more of them, increase your revenue, and run profitable and optimal UA campaigns.

There are more complex models that will enable you to automatically personalize experiences to each one of your customers and provide recommendations as part of those personalized experiences. It will make each one of your customers feel that you built your products just for them.

Personalized Customer Support

Customer Support is a pet peeve of mine. I have mostly had horrible CS experiences. However, there here has been less than a handful of companies throughout my career that I have found to have great customer support. Every time I have run customer support, I always strived to imitate those companies. It is not easy, and it takes years to develop a customer support training regimen and infrastructure to imitate them. AI and particularly well-trained generative AI models can provide a solid solution to horrible customer support.

Currently, bots have been deployed to route CS calls. And to be frank, I find them a half measure solution to the problem. In many cases it’s frustrating to interact with them because they lack “interaction skills”. Imagine a bot that not only understands what your query is, but also can access your purchase history, your browse history on the site, the items you have put and taken out of the shopping cart, etc., and not just routes the call to the right agent, but also provides the agent with a set of possible solutions as well as possibly resolve the problem itself before even getting to the agent.

Not only will your customers have a better experience because their issues will get resolved faster, but also, your CS agents will be more effective. This approach will reduce wait time, increase customer satisfaction and retention, and improve your agents’ morale in the process, leading to …. Even more customer satisfaction … etc.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is a hot topic on its own. Add AI to it and it’s an even hotter topic. You must assume that you are constantly under attack and probably already had one or many breaches. You also must assume that some of those breaches went unnoticed. With AI, bad actors have an even wider and more dangerous tool set to deploy on an attack.

Just as in automation, the fact that an AI can process vast amounts of data fast, it can help you not only detect but also thwart an attack. You can train the AI on your network traffic so when it detects traffic that does not match your network’s patterns it can deploy countermeasures. While this explanation may be an oversimplification, it does illustrate rather well the value of AI to counter cyber-attacks. You MUST use the same tools the bad actors use.

Healthcare

I think that healthcare is an area where AI can make the most and fastest contribution, FDA, and other international health organizations notwithstanding.

One of the areas I see AI disrupting healthcare is in personalized medicine. You can use inexpensive DNA studies of a person or pair AIs with imaging to get faster and more accurate diagnosis. Furthermore, using a wearable device like an Apple Watch or COROS or Garmin watches, also paired with AIs can be used to track a person’s overall health. We could deploy smart toilets and quickly analyze what is deposited in them, and again use the data paired with AIs as part of a personalized preventive medicine set up.

And these are just a few ideas where I think AI could dramatically help improve healthcare.

Entertainment

Currently, AI in entertainment is a sore subject given the ongoing writers and actors strikes. While the strikes are not entirely about AI, AI is part of the discussion. However, here is my take:

First, I think that writers can benefit from using AI as a tool to write scripts faster, if not also better. The writing process is accelerated using AI. A prime example is this article (and following video script.) I used AI to validate assumptions, help me with ideas on each section, and double check facts.  While just an example, a writer working on a sci-fi script, while keeping it light for audiences, can also create more accurate scientific narrative.  The same accuracy can be brought to a historical drama. So on an so forth

Will AI replace writers? I do not think so, no matter what executives might want.

There are other areas of entertainment where the use of AI can be substantial. Games for example. Amongst benefits that AI can bring to games is personalized game play with automatic level creation, more dynamic and truly interactive NPCs, assisted and pre-curated UGC, etc. And let’ not forget the possibility of having more dramatically immersive AR/VR experiences.

There are many other areas where companies and individuals can benefit from AI. Covering them all in this article is impossible, however, here is a partial list.

• Fraud detection

• Transportation – autonomous vehicles to routing and improve fuel efficiency

• Manufacturing and robotics

• Network optimization

• Personalized Education

• Sales

• Human resources

• Supply Chain

• Workflow Optimization

The applications of AI to help in solving business problems and making business more effective are endless.

Thank you!