By the end of 2018, it is predicted that 70% of enterprises (paywall) will implement AI. This is up from 40% in 2016 and 51% in 2017. There's one thing that these statistics make crystal clear -- big data and AI are here to stay.
While many already know how this technology is transforming people's lives and providing more customized experiences, many may not know how this benefits businesses.
If you are like many others and wonder what exactly the benefit of big data and AI for business is, then you're in the right place.
Here, I'll discuss the way AI is transforming the business world for the better.
1. Improved Business Intelligence
Analyzing businesses has become easier and more effective thanks to business intelligence. The set of data tools that makes business intelligence possible is big data. Before big data was introduced, business intelligence was somewhat limited. However, now, business intelligence is considered a legitimate career.
In fact, many companies and enterprises are taking advantage of this new influx of information by hiring business intelligence experts. This is to help take their company to the next level.
2. Understanding, Targeting And Serving Customers
When it comes to big data applications, this is one of the most well-known areas. The primary focus is to use big data to get to know customers, as well as their preferences and behaviors.
By implementing big data (and hiring big data experts) companies can now expand their traditional data sets with text analytics, browser logs and social media data, receiving a more complete picture of their customers.
The main objective here is to create predictive models.
3. Changing The Way Social Media Is Used
One of the primary ways AI has impacted the business world is through social media. In the coming months and years, there's no question that personalized content targeting in real time will increase. All this has the ultimate goal of increasing sales opportunities.
This is possible because AI can make use of effective behavioral targeting methodologies. An example of AI's ability is here. Thanks to the enabled marketing stack, AI can effectively and accurately determine when someone on any platform begins searching for new customer relationship management (CRM) software. With this information, businesses can automatically respond, providing a better buying experience.
4. The Introduction Of Customer Responsive Products
Not only is big data going to improve customer service by making it proactive, it's also allowing companies to make customer responsive products. Now, product design is focused on fulfilling the needs of customers in ways never possible before.
Rather than relying on customers to tell a business what they want from a product, data analysis can be used to predict what is wanted out of a product.
Thanks to big data, companies can determine what a future product should do and look like by gathering information via buying habits, surveys and even case scenarios from customers.
5. Enhance Fraud Prevention Abilities
Those who have become professional "fraudsters" have elevated their game in the modern digital world. While this is true, the capabilities of fraud detection tools powered by AI can help businesses protect against these sophisticated fraud schemes.
This is possible thanks to businesses leveraging video recognition, natural language processing, speech recognition, machine learning engines and automation.
6. Improvements In Efficiency
An industrial engineer is the professional that can make processes more efficient. They understand that without big data, this increase in efficiency is virtually impossible.
Today, big data is providing rich information about every process and product. Those who know how to use it understand that rich data is telling a story and smart businesses are listening.
Engineers are also using big data to find ways to make processes run more efficiently. The analysis of big data also works well with the theory of constraints. With big data, constraints are now much easier to recognize. Once recognized, it's possible to quickly determine whether the constraint is binding and how.
With the constraint found and removed, the business can see large increases in throughput and performance. Big data is instrumental in finding all these answers.
7. Enable Constant Customer Support
Now that chatbots are commonplace and able to deliver 24/7 customer support, businesses can utilize the data gathered in their CRM system. This gives them the ability to acquire even more invaluable customer insights.
When used to its full potential, the data can help in the optimization of several touch points, which include chatbot interactivity, and the creation of a feedback loop full of customer data.
This means that AI helps business create the ultimate customer experience. This is all done thanks to the indispensable customer data gathered, analyzed and used.
8. Reduced Costs
With big data, businesses can use the information available to reduce costs. How? By finding trends and predicting future events within the industry.
Knowing when something is likely to happen helps to improve planning and forecasts. Those in charge of planning now know when to produce and how much to produce. They can predict how much inventory is needed at a given time, ensuring customer fulfillment without excessive costs on their end.
After all, it's extremely expensive to maintain inventory. Not only do businesses have to cover the carrying cost but also have capital tied up in unnecessary inventory.
With big data analysis, it's possible to predict when sales are going to occur and when production is necessary.
More in-depth analysis can even show businesses when the ideal time for purchasing inventory is and how much inventory needs to remain on-hand.
Big Data And AI: The Future Of Business
If you want to help your business achieve more, then embracing big data and AI is a must.
The fact is, it isn't going to be long before the businesses that have failed to embrace this new technology are going to be left behind.
