Whether it is Big Data or the Internet of Things, we know that technology continues to revolutionise the business world and aid business growth, but what role does Artificial Intelligence (AI) play and how well is it utilised?
According to ComputerWeekly.com, in a survey by Vanson Bourne for Infosys, 1,600 global businesses that have adopted artificial intelligence (AI) technologies expect that by 2020 their revenues will have increased by 39% and their costs dropped by 37%.
While 64% of the Chinese, Australian, US, Indian, German, French and UK companies questioned say their business growth depends on large-scale AI adoption, the survey showed that just 10% of those tapping into AI are using to its full advantage.
A number of areas – including implementation times, usability and interoperability (between systems and platforms) – were marked as needing improvement while other issues such as the security of jobs and data were raised as concerns.
The ethics of replacing employees with AI software was top of the list for many and though the survey revealed that in 80% of cases where companies replaced staff roles with AI they redeployed employees in-house with 53% investing in skills development, two-thirds of those surveyed had not fully considered the ethical issues.
In the UK, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has used IBM cloud-based Watson Conversation service to provide a robot that deals with customer queries since the end of 2016. Meanwhile, in Japan Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is set to replace 34 members of its claims assessment team with a similar AI technology which can read medical documents to assess payments. The robots will only calculate payment amounts and the final decisions will still be made by humans but the insurance company expects to slash costs by almost £1m by cutting 30% of department staff.
Rather than being put-off by the inhuman touch, customers too are warming to this customer service for a digital age. Research from Accenture revealed that 68% of UK consumers are prepared to use software robots for banking services.
Infosys President Sandeep Dadlani says, “As we are seeing AI mature and gain momentum, our research shows that the next four years will witness further spikes in interest, and general bullishness about the significant value and benefits that can be obtained through AI adoption. As an industry, therefore, we must take the necessary steps to ensure AI is developed morally and ethically across every part of society and that employees are actively engaged and provided with the necessary training to be central to this journey.”
It seems that there are myriad issues to overcome before AI is milked for all its worth by UK businesses but that there are definite changes afoot. In the meantime, the Brittain team can help you to make sure you get the most out of your businesses. Discover the excellent return on investment we offer our clients here.
Give us a call on 0844 880 4584 or get in touch online if you would like to take the first step towards business growth today.
