How to Empower Your Existing Product with AI

The integration of AI has become a game-changer for many businesses. In 2024 a growing number of companies will prioritize AI adoption. Here are the real numbers proving my point:?

• 35% of businesses already adopted AI?
• 63% of companies plan to implement AI in the next 3 years
• 47% of organizations have a well-defined AI strategy?

AI is no longer a hype, it’s a must-have. And the challenge that most businesses face right now is modernization of their existing products. They want to integrate AI but do not know where to start.?

So being an expert in product modernization, I decided to share with you Artkai’s go-to roadmap in this post. It will help you to empower your product with AI and improve its user experience and functionality.?

Ready to delve into this topic? Then buckle up and let’s get started!?

Start with Product Audit?

Already have an application you want to modernize, make it more customer-centric and competitive? Then conduct an audit that will help you understand the current state of your solution and how AI can improve its capabilities.?

During this audit, it is essential to:

• Examine the existing software code, data models, user interfaces, and the app's architecture.
• Assess the performance, including its response times, accuracy, and overall efficiency in delivering customer-centric experiences.
• Ensure that the app complies with data protection regulations and industry standards.
• Check the software's ability to scale as the business grows and evolves.
• Collect and analyze the app to gauge customer satisfaction with the AI application. This includes understanding if it effectively addresses their needs and pain points.
• Measure and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to customer-centric goals like client satisfaction, retention, engagement, and problem resolution.
• Identify any gaps or shortcomings in the current AI application concerning customer-centric objectives.
• Examine the quality and accuracy of data used by the AI application
• Check if the used technologies, tools, and frameworks remain optimal for delivering a customer-centric AI experience.
• Uncover opportunities for optimizing the application and generate detailing of the audit findings, recommendations, and action plans for modernization.

Redesign Your Product

Once you’ve completed a product audit, you can proceed with the redesign. Here is how I recommend to do it:

• Start by incorporating personalization features to consider user preferences, historical behavior, and data points. This ensures a tailored and engaging AI application experience.
• It is crucial to visualize the future. You can do this by creating prototypes and mockups that provide a clear understanding of how your AI application will look and function. By doing this, you can predict user interactions and refine the user experience accordingly.
• Your design should seamlessly align with customer expectations, making navigation and interaction a breeze. Users should effortlessly engage with your product, and the interface should be a conduit to their satisfaction.
• Conduct comprehensive usability testing. This step enables you to gauge whether the design aligns with customer-centric goals. Real user feedback is invaluable in identifying and rectifying any usability issues that may arise.
• Take the insights and feedback gathered during usability testing to heart and refine your design accordingly. It's a dynamic process that ensures your product evolves to meet user needs and expectations.
• It's essential to ensure that your chosen technologies enhance the user experience rather than hinder it. Your design should seamlessly integrate with AI technologies to deliver a more personalized and efficient interaction.
• Consider users with disabilities or special needs to ensure inclusivity. A well-designed, accessible product opens the door to a broader user base and demonstrates your commitment to diversity and usability.

Consider Further Improvements?

The improvements for existing products are crucial for staying responsive to customer needs and competitive in the market. During this stage, you should:

• Сlean up and reorganize the existing code, removing redundant or unnecessary ones, enhancing its clarity, and organizing it for improved readability and maintainability
• Optimize the performance by improving algorithms, enhancing database queries, and fine-tuning code for better speed and responsiveness.
• Refactor the architecture and code to enhance scalability.
• Optimize data storage methods to improve data retrieval and processing.?
• Integrate new features that align with customer-centric goals and enhance user experiences.
• Create and implement AI models or optimize existing ones.
• Conduct unit testing, integration testing, and system testing to verify that the app's functionality remains intact and optimized.
• Document all code changes and improvements.

Best practices for delivering AI-powered applications

Making your solution AI-powered requires adherence to best practices that ensure effectiveness and addresses potential challenges. Here are some best practices I highly recommend following:?

Combine AI with humans

Combining AI and humans allows you to scale your services to meet the demands of a growing customer base without sacrificing quality.?

Let’s take customer service as an example. AI is available 24/7, offering instant support at any hour. This means customers can receive assistance when it's most convenient for them, improving their overall experience. However, some issues may be intricate and require human judgment and decision-making. Also, human agents bring a level of personalization and empathy that AI, as of now, cannot replicate.

Consider continuous monitoring and improvement?

Regularly analyze how your AI-powered product is performing. Also, actively seek and incorporate customer feedback into your improvement process. Understand what your customers like and dislike about the AI service to identify areas for enhancement.

Use the insights from performance metrics and customer feedback to make necessary adjustments. This could involve refining AI algorithms, improving responses, or expanding the system's capabilities.

Use high-quality data

AI systems learn from the data they're exposed to during training. If this data is high-quality, the AI is more likely to provide accurate insights and responses. At the same time, it helps reduce biases that might emerge in AI systems.

Diverse data allows AI to understand and cater to the unique needs of different customers. It's the foundation for creating personalized support that enhances customer experiences.?

Prioritize investing in acquiring and maintaining high-quality data to improve AI performance and customer satisfaction.

Set clear expectations

Clearly convey how customers can use your AI-powered product, what it's best suited for, and when to seek human assistance. Be open about the capabilities and limitations of your AI product to manage customer expectations and prevent misunderstandings.

Educate your customers about the benefits of the AI system and how to make the most of it. This empowers them to utilize the tool effectively. Also, make sure customers understand the level of assistance they can expect from the automated system.?

Focus on user experience

The design of AI-powered solutions should revolve around the user. Prioritize intuitive interfaces that are easy to use. Users should be able to navigate and use the system without confusion.

Ensure that users find it not only helpful but also enjoyable to interact with. And your AI system is accessible to a wide range of users, including those with different abilities.

Implement robust security measures?

Prioritize the security of customer data, implementing measures to safeguard sensitive information from unauthorized access and breaches. They may include encryption, access control, firewalls, Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS), multi-factor authentication, etc.

Wrapping Up?

For many businesses embracing AI is not merely a trend but a strategic move. By implementing AI and experimenting with it, they can transform their services and make them more customer-centric.?

The key to the successful product transformation lies in the meticulous redesign and proper AI integration. You need to invest your time and resources in product audit, data collection, UX redesign, and active testing.?

And now is the best time to do it! Start your AI journey in 2024, and very soon you’ll witness the impact it can bring to your product and, ultimately, your business success.

Need help with product modernization??

DM me and let’s talk business! ;)