The first thought that crosses many people’s mind when they hear “AI” is automation. The next thought is: AI automation makes processes cheaper and faster.
While automation is indeed a natural starting point for leveraging AI to optimize existing business models, the benefits extend way beyond that.
But even within the automation aspect the key benefit of AI is that it frees you from having to choose between cost and quality.
Most of us are used to thinking that to improve quality, one has to increase cost. And to reduce cost, one has to accept a drop in quality.
How does AI free us from this choice? Here are three key ways:
AI improves accuracy. Humans are limited in how many examples and exceptions they can remember. AI can absorb practically infinite experiences and so can achieve higher accuracy, especially on complex tasks.
AI improves consistency. Humans are inconsistent. What you get depends on who is on duty and how good or bad of a day they are having. AI always produces the same result from the same inputs.
AI is more personal. I admit I picked that wording to get your attention. In several important ways, AI is very far from being personal in the human-touch sense. But AI can learn more about your customer than a human can and in that sense, it can serve the customer in a more personal way.
All this – and at lower cost. What’s not to like?
There’s no free lunch, though. The cost here is marginal cost; unless your company is fully AI transformed and can spit out new AI solutions with minimal effort, fixed costs associated with building AI solutions may be significant. Done right though, such capability building may be the best strategic investment your company can make in these times.
Think about any business process in your company that you’d like to improve. By leveraging AI, you could make that process faster, cheaper, consistent, highly accurate and more personal.