AI for Businesses

• By Sandeep Gupta
• 15-07-2024
• Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is getting very popular! But why? Have you ever given it a thought? We know you did, and that is why you are here.

Be relaxed because you are in the right place. In this blog, we will cover all about AI and how AI is improving business and operations.

Overview of AI

Artificial intelligence is the branch of computer science that is known to put human brain abilities of decision-making, analytical thinking, and problem-solving in machines. Now, people may know about the concept of AI but not the techniques that support its functioning. Therefore, below discussed are the other important sub-parts of AI that you must know about:

Machine learning is a sub-part of AI that uses statistical methods to make the machines “learn.” In the ML process, the model is fed with a large relevant training dataset, and it uses mathematical algorithms to uncover the hidden patterns in the dataset.

Neural networks (a subset of ML) are networks of interconnected nodes (artificial neurons) that let machines mimic the working of neurons in the human brain. They allow the model to do complex tasks and understand complex patterns.

Behind any language model stands Natural language processing (NLP), the AI technique that enables machines to understand and interpret human language.

Similar to NLP is Computer Vision, which lets the machines recognize and respond to visual inputs like images, videos, and so on.

Ahead in the blog, we will uncover how all of these technologies are used to transform business operations in the real world.

Applications of AI for businesses

Following are the applications of AI for businesses:

Content Generation

In today’s era of generative AI like ChatGPT, NLP-backed AI models are widely used by businesses to generate different types of content, including repetitive emails, follow-up messages, marketing content, blogs, customer replies, etc. AI for content generation is utilized in everyday business operations through AI chatbots, chat assistants, AI customer service, and more.

Marketing & Sales

AI analyzes customer’s activities across different apps and thus monitors their interests, behavior, and spending habits. Using these analytics, AI forwards product recommendations to the company’s customer base that are personalized for each of the customers. Based on the data, all the customers would most likely buy the AI-recommended products. Also, AI offers an amazing dynamic forecasting feature that automatically updates the prices according to the demand & supply market trends. Thus, these AI techniques for marketing and sales lead to a high customer conversion rate and, therefore, boost sales.

Customer Service

With NLP semantic analysis and computer vision, AI can understand the customer’s intent and identify the pictures if needed. Using both these features, AI can conversate with different customers and take the required action. For more complex cases, AI can divert calls to the respective customer service teams. Thus, AI reduces the pressure on customer service teams and allows them to work carefully on more sensitive cases.

IT Operations

Generative AI’s not just limited to texts, but it even assists software engineers in automated code generation, code review, testing, quality assurance, debugging, documentation, deployment, and predictive maintenance. Moreover, AI allows IT teams to incorporate different IT operational tools in a centralized platform, making it easier to respond to slowdowns or outages. Thus, AI improves the efficiency of IT infrastructure and helps improve its management.

Human Resources

The ability of AI to handle large data and analyze and produce insights assists the HR teams in screening loads of resumes and candidate profiles to shortlist candidates with the relevant skill set of open job vacancies. Moreover, AI can prepare tasks and assignments for different profiles, which further helps the hiring teams search for the most suitable candidate. With AI, HR can analyze the peak work shifts and drawbacks, which can improve workforce planning and management.

Cybersecurity

AI monitors all the data on online business activities and tracks all the products, customers, and sales data. Through this constant data analysis, AI gets familiar with the hidden patterns related to scams and fraudulent activities. Thus, whenever AI detects any unusual activity within the business system, it automatically raises safety alerts and takes the required preventive action to avoid security threats and data breaches.

Legal Departments

The law of any country is a thick book with numeral acts, rules, and regulations written. Law professionals need to surf all those acts and laws to solve a particular case, which is time-consuming and complex. Also, both lawyers and judges need to read and write judgments, do proper documentation, and summarize large documents. Now, AI for lawyers can make all these tasks easier, simplify, and even streamline other administrative processes. Thus, from research, analysis, and contract review, AI can take care of it all.

Facial Recognition & Virtual Trial Rooms

With AI computer vision, AI can detect the facial features of people, which can help in different tasks like automated employee attendance, online assessment monitoring in education, airport verification, social media safety, law enforcement, marketing, advertising, and so on. Also, facial recognition can be fruitful for e-commerce businesses, and they can build virtual trial rooms for people, which would allow people to try on different apparel, accessories, cosmetics, etc, allowing them to gain confidence in the product before purchasing it. This would reduce the frequency of returns and exchanges, thereby saving resources like time and money for both businesses and customers.

Accounting

Accounting operations have many manual, repetitive, time-consuming tasks that require careful attention and must be error-free. In such departments, AI can be a boon for the business. With the help of AI, these tasks, including data entry, would be turned automated and error-free, which will reduce labor costs, and work will be done rapidly. Apart from this, AI in accounting can also streamline the payroll processes accurately. Last but not least, AI can also be beneficial for tax-audit support. It can simplify the documentation, enabling the tax auditors to check and authenticate the company’s transactions properly.

Inventory Management

For product-based businesses, AI can analyze the market trends and predict the stock required for the upcoming days based on the same. However, it automates the order placing, data entry, and stock analysis process. It also produces insights for inventory managers to let them know about the fallbacks and how they can optimize the inventory for the betterment of the business.

Finance

AI in finance can perform real-time data analytics and can process large amounts of financial data, which is quite a critical aspect for businesses. By recognizing patterns of fraud and scams, AI can prevent any kind of money laundering activity. Also, AI can help enterprises predict costs, which can help them make accurate budget plans and allocate resources. Hence, AI in the financial sector helps in financial data analysis, regulation, and budgeting.

Supply Chain Management

AI is already revolutionizing the supply chain and logistics industry. When a customer places an order, AI can automatically calculate the expected duration for order completion by considering factors such as the distance from the warehouse to the delivery address, the mode of shipment, and product availability. It then informs both the customer and the business about the delivery schedule. AI also manages order intake, alerts the packaging and shipping teams to follow the plan, and automates the vehicle allocation for shipping the order. By analyzing data from all the orders placed, AI determines the best delivery routes, ensuring the fastest delivery. Thus, automation reduces human errors, time clashes, and pressure on supply chain teams, allowing them to deliver products on time.

Decision Support

AI is the master of data analytics and keeps track of records of all kinds of data related to customer activity, customer details, product details, orders placed, profits, losses, vendors, inventory, and so on. AI can then produce data-driven insights on different scenarios, which can help business managers make informed data-backed decisions. Moreover, for any kind of decision, AI can help managers with the required actions for business growth. Thus, AI helps in intelligent decision-making, elevating the business's growth.

Hence, AI offers innumerable applications in the current business scenario. However, if you join hands with the best AI consulting company before getting your model developed, you may enjoy some benefits of added innovation, and cost-effective AI strategies.

Benefits of AI in Different Industries

The given key points elaborate on the role of AI in different industries:

Healthcare

AI in healthcare brings a number of benefits, such as enhanced and streamlined medical imaging, automated appointment scheduling, patient record-keeping, notes-making, medical chatbot services, and so on. All these features optimize healthcare operations and reduce waiting times for patients, allowing doctors to treat more patients in less time.

Automotive

By using AI, automotive businesses can adjust their production in accordance with market trends in demand and supply. Also, with the incorporation of AI-backed machinery, production will become more streamlined, intelligent, and accurate.

Education

AI chatbots and virtual assistants are very beneficial for education purposes, as they can provide all types of information to the students and solve their queries even during the hours when educators might not be available. Also, teachers can make use of AI to automatically check the student’s assignments and spot the plagiarized content students might have copied from other sources.

Energy

AI can monitor the energy supply, consumption, and peak usage hours, and thus, energy plants can adjust their production and optimize costs based on this data. By analyzing the data on energy consumption, peak consumption timings, and areas, AI can even suggest recommendations to use energy efficiently to reduce overconsumption, which would help in sustainable development.

Manufacturing

Data-backed AI forecasting can estimate the quantity of products that need to be manufactured to accurately meet the demand. Moreover, it can help optimize product designs and allow businesses to have many design options. Some businesses worldwide have even incorporated robots to perform hefty tasks like lifting, assembling items, etc.

Pharmaceuticals

AI can help streamline bioinformatics research, which further helps in fast and accurate drug development and production. However for pharma-marketing businesses, AI helps in customer handling, inventory management, order, sales, and supply chain management.

Retail

AI is an all-rounder for retail businesses. It not only helps in tailored marketing, which is one of the best marketing techniques with a high conversion rate, but also assists in inventory management, supply chain management, and customer service. AI keeps a record of all types of metadata about the products, customer details, sales metadata, and so on. Thus, AI for retail businesses saves crucial resources like time and money with its automation and personalization.

Transportation

Communicating among manufacturers, marketers, and customers can be a hassle, which AI solves for any type of business. From receiving orders and making the shipment schedule to communicating the pickup and drop with the truck drivers, AI takes care of it all. Hence, by integrating AI, the customer and the business can track the product’s whereabouts and moving status. Also, AI considers the workload of all the vehicles involved in transportation, predicts and schedules their maintenance, and ensures the durability of the vehicles, preventing further costs.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations

Along with the benefits that AI brings to the business, there are also some challenges that come in the way of AI development:

Data Availability

Having a high-quality training dataset is important for AI models to work efficiently and accurately. However, finding such quality data is challenging, as most of the data available are either incomplete or have biases and errors. To tackle this challenge, businesses must invest in data cleaning and validation to ensure their model is trained with high-quality datasets.

Model Training

Finding an appropriate skillset for developing and training an AI model is a challenge. Most of the fish found in the sea are not even worth catching; therefore, before investing in any development service, the business must ensure its reliability. Getting in touch with a reliable AI development company like Build Future AI can build the best AI models to help grow your business.

Resources & Infrastructure

Integrating AI into the business can be expensive as it requires compatible IT infrastructure to support the working of the AI model. However, if you collaborate with a good AI development company, they will audit your business and provide cost-effective solutions, which will give you a higher ROI (return on investment).

Final Words

As the era of AI is getting more advanced with each passing day, considering the ethical aspects for the well-being of mankind is as important. AI is trained with large datasets, and it works on handling different types of data, including people’s personal and financial details. Therefore, all the AI models that would be developed must be made secure, even better if you integrate blockchain into your AI models. As blockchain technology is based on a decentralized structure, it offers more transparency, security, and reliability for the working of AI models. Blockchain and AI are drastic combinations that businesses must explore.

At last, it is pertinent to mention that in the coming future, integrating AI will not be a choice but a crucial need for businesses to survive and excel in this competitive digital age. Hence, as soon as they understand AI’s importance, the better would be their growth.