How AI is supporting the IT sector
AI is all around us: Have you noticed?
Without many of us even realizing it, AI is making its mark in many parts of our lives, and the trend is set to continue. In the latest edition of IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Artificial Intelligence Tracker, companies could spend nearly $342 billion on AI software, hardware and services in 2021.
Whether it's using voice assistance on a mobile phone to answer a burning question, perform a command or automate a frequent task; or using Google Translate to instantly translate words from a language you don’t understand – AI is no longer a science fiction future, but today’s reality.
Unravel traditional methods of computing
Although AI has been penetrating into many industries, the impact it’s having on Information Technology (IT) is unravelling traditional methods of computing and forging a new path to tackle today’s complex IT environments.
With the enormous amount of data being collected every day, big data and AI are merging into an inseparable partnership. According to a report by Statista, in the next five years up to 2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes.
Let’s delve into some examples of how AI is being used to improve customer experience, support IT environments and increase profitability.
Free up IT service desk agents with a chatbot
Chatbots are used in many service industries to help answer 70%-80% of customer questions, without the need for human intervention. And they’re becoming more human everyday.
QnA Maker is one possible tool which is frequently used to create conversational client applications such as chatbots. This is transforming automated customer support from an annoyance to a genuinely helpful tool. Chatbots are being used in IT support, where basic IT problems can be handled directly through a conversational UI – freeing up IT service desk agents to work on more complicated tasks.
Training for chatbots
Each day, businesses find themselves with a growing list of Q&As that are not being put to good use. QnA Maker, being an AI model, can be trained with existing QA databases with various formats, such as PDFs, written text, and even URLs. The result is a useful system of questions and answers that is trained to further improve quality.
Chatbots can significantly improve customer experience, as they can provide instant answers to a high percentage of inquiries 24/7. They can also provide multi-language support and deliver surprisingly high levels of personalization.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is imperative for a chatbot to successfully interpret and act on human language inputs. Essentially, without NLP, chatbots would be ineffective for situations involving language input. Further NLP functions can be implemented that cover more than simply the basic QnA functionality, such as the ability to recognize people’s intentions, not just keywords.
Chatbot use is expected to grow
In 2021, 47% of organizations are expected to implement chatbots for customer support services, and 40% are expected to adopt virtual assistants. By replacing or reducing the level of human interaction, chatbots also provide significant cost savings for businesses. Juniper Research, for example, has found that the operational cost savings from using chatbots in banking will reach $7.3 billion globally by 2023.
领英推荐
Query data at lightning speed
With an increasingly digitized world, IT companies will need to utilize the latest in AI technology to avoid falling behind. Machine learning, a subset of AI, is one of the most used technologies of this generation. As its use grows, so does its maturity.
Water companies, for example, can implement a smart metering scheme that allows for a better understanding of customer water usage, utilising technology to help protect and secure customer data.
Overall, companies that take a deeper dive with machine learning tools will appreciate the valuable insights gained to make better business decisions. Together with our partners, we can help businesses to quickly query, process and store data – at speeds a human simply wouldn’t be able to achieve.
Today’s easy to use AI technology means developers without advanced expertise can propel a business vision. Whether it’s preserving a country’s rich heritage by speeding up historical image handling, or improving customer satisfaction using robots, cognitive computing is taking the tech world into new directions.
How ALSO can help
At ALSO, our ongoing mission is to provide ready to sell, easy to use tools that can be implemented without the use of any AI expertise. We believe in using smaller AI solutions as building blocks to create tailor-made AI solutions that scale. In this way, we can empower as many of our resellers as possible to enter the AI business. For those willing to specialize, for example in natural language processing features or big data analytics, we can provide opportunities to nurture AI skill sets and develop deeper levels of knowledge in specific AI fields.
AI is for today
AI isn’t just a buzzword or something associated with the distant future, but a game changer for today’s world. From changing the face of IT support with chatbots, to preserving a country’s rich history with cognitive services, AI will continue to transform the IT industry with an increasing amount of tools, services and tailor-made solutions.
Follow-up Article:
The World Economic Forum has published a new study on how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to accelerate a more equitable energy transition and boost confidence in the technology across the industry. As the impacts of climate change become increasingly visible around the world, governments and industry face an urgent challenge to make the transition to a low-carbon global energy system. Digital technologies – particularly AI – are a key enabler of this transition and have the potential to achieve the energy sector's climate goals faster and at lower cost.
The report, “ Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate the Energy Transition”, written in collaboration with BloombergNEF and the German Energy Agency (dena), provides an overview of the current state of AI deployment in the energy sector, identifies priority applications of AI in the energy transition, and offers a roadmap and practical recommendations for the energy and AI industries to maximise the benefits of AI.
The report concludes that AI has the potential to create significant value for the global energy transition. Based on BNEF's net-zero scenario modelling, every 1 per cent additional demand efficiency creates $1.3 trillion in value between 2020 and 2050 due to reduced investment needs. AI could achieve this, among other factors by enabling greater energy efficiency.