AI Might Be Your New Employee

When most people hear the word Artificial Intelligence, they think of that Will Smith movie, robots taking their jobs, or robots taking over in general. While I can't say for sure if you should be concerned about those things, I can say one thing for sure: AI is your friend— or better yet— your employee.

So how can you use AI and machine learning in your business?

Machine Learning falls under the umbrella of Artificial Intelligence. It is is the ability to create programs that get better with time.

A very basic example is the way your Netflix account makes recommendations for you based on what you watch. It learns what you like and recommends similar.

So how can you use this to your advantage? Well, as you can imagine, machine learning becomes more accurate and efficient with time. This means that you can allocate certain tedious tasks to your software and you can focus on the more important things.

It’s not to say that this will replace the need for humans. Machines still aren’t capable of abstract thoughts or creativity, so humans are still integral to the equation. This just means that you can delegate tedious and redundant tasks, freeing up your time and your mind to do what only humans can-- create.

“Machine learning can’t get something from nothing…what it does is get more from less.”

– Dr. Pedro Domingo, University of Washington

This ability to delegate will give way to boom in industry similar to the industrial revolution or the creation of the first computer. Without having to perform base-level tasks, we’re opening up a whole world of next-level thinking and progress.

So, how can you really use this? One way is to sharpen the way you target your marketing efforts. The basic principle of a profitable business is putting your product in front of someone who needs it, right?

Which we’ve been able to do for some time now. The only issue is that you have to shoot blind, and put your message in front of thousands, hoping that a few will commit. As powerful suppliers like Google and Facebook raise their advertising prices, this can get costly fast.

There’s a rising need to sharpen our targeting. In order to maximize profits, we need to put our message in front of only the people who are going to buy, and cut out the rest. Machine Learning allows us to do that by identifying people whose need for your service is the highest.

Using Machine Learning, we’ve been able to cut ad costs by up to 80% and still see a climbing ROI. Things are changing rapidly, and this new marriage of AI and advertising will create a much better experience for consumers as well as retailers.

The art of matching a person with a need to a person with a solution has been at the front of our minds for decades, but nothing this accurate has ever been possible.

What tasks would you delegate if you could? Let me know in the comments!