How IoT and AI can enable companies to restart their business during COVID-19

After months of extreme uncertainty, economic downturn and isolation in our homes, economies are slowly restarting their operations and transactions. However, this transition will not go smoothly. There are many rules and limitations related to physical distance and hygiene which still force employers to ask their employees to work from home. Of course, these rules are more than necessary so we can keep on flattening the curve of the pandemic, but there are some key concerns for companies and employees.

How can companies can start offering their services, while their employees mostly work from home? And how can these employees interact with customers, without any physical contact or the possibility to make in-person transactions?

The Internet of Things (IoT) can help companies get control of their destiny and offer safe and relevant services, while keeping their employees safe. We can use IoT to collect data through sensors and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make sense out of this data. The new name of this convergence is the AI of Things (AIOT). AIOT can be the solution for the COVID-concerns mentioned above, and in this blog we will explore how.

Work from home

First of all, IoT can give you a hand with remote performance monitoring and management of your assets, directly from a laptop at home. No need to send people to each physical location and check the function of their machines. By adding predictive (or prescriptive) analytics to identify and solve issues in a machine early, companies can move from a reactive approach to a more proactive mindset, while saving lots of time and budget. It is already widespread in manufacturing, retail, logistics, construction, and even the infrastructure of cities, hospitals and airports. Companies with IoT enabled solutions are relying extensively on them while achieving transparency, real-time tracking, safety and meeting government compliance.

Similar concepts can also be applied to monitor the health and safety of workers. Aggregated and anonymised data can be very useful for national healthcare systems, so they can measure the impact of their decisions during the ease of lockdown, etc. Data privacy concerns should be analysed thoroughly though. Everything we discussed for work from home can help the company in many ways also after the end of the pandemic. That’s why the employees must be at the centre of each design thinking process, asking them for feedback, consensus and active involvement from the beginning.

Physical distance

Unfortunately, there are many jobs that cannot be done without physically being present, like builders in construction, workers in factories, farms, retail stores or in transportation services. In almost every country, even if a strict lockdown is relaxed, the need for two metres physical distance from each other is more important than ever. Governments will try to enforce this either as guidance or even as a rule, making it a strict condition for businesses to restart operations. The remote IoT services described above are helping companies to reduce the number of employees at the field, creating the right conditions for physical distance.

An important way to ensure the physical distance on the work floor is through wearables. For example, smart watches, smart belts, helmets, or even smart clothes and shoes can give location data and context about where the workers are located and how successful the applied measures are for physical distance and safety. The wearable could even make a simple warning (soft sound/vibration) to the worker when he/she is too close to a co-worker. Some of these wearables can also help to identify if any employee has a high fever or stress. As a result, managers can take data driven measures and decisions which benefit of employee health and productivity. Of course, all these measures should aim to support the employees and not to penalise them, otherwise the results of these measures would be very concerning.

Contactless transactions

The concept of smart buildings is maybe one of the best examples of how IoT can help with contactless interactions in a closed environment (building). In addition to automation through IoT, the use of voice-activated applications is a crucial way to promote contactless interactions. Smart speakers like Alexa and Google Nest are becoming increasingly popular in homes, but we can also see this concept in commercial buildings. More and more manufacturers of office or public facilities are incorporating voice command capabilities in their operations, such as smart elevators, vending machines and other devices. Connecting these machines and adding voice capabilities can create new opportunities for advertisement and brand engagement as well as enable remote maintenance as discussed previously.

A relatively new application in the West that can offer contactless experience is face recognition, which is already used quite often in Asia. This topic is very sensitive though as it is related to personal data and how this data can be used. However, in controlled environments where the users/visitors known already, like in corporate offices, schools, and universities, it can be very useful for access control applications instead of asking people to touch buttons, or trying to find their ID card for scanning creating queuing. Overall, it seems that the vision for contactless experience is feasible and while companies try to achieve this, they can take advantage of additional benefits like cost reductions, energy efficiency, data insights and better services.

Innovation in times of crisis

In summary, IoT and AI enabled applications can help companies and cities automate processes, track and manage assets from home and create a contactless user experience. For even better results and insights, you can later combine it with other technologies like digital twins, AR and VR. In addition to the COVID-19 health and safety solutions, IoT can also improve sales, cost efficiency and sustainability. We already see acceleration in digital transformation projects, as companies try to adjust to the circumstances of the pandemic.

IoT and AI are key enablers of this digital transformation. We know that the journey of digital transformation is particularly challenging in the current economic climate, but it does deliver benefits and opportunities to get through this crisis stronger and more prepared for the future.

Interested in finding out more on IoT and AI? Read more:

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