Robots Are Coming For Me: Are Big Data & AI Stealing My Business?
To help you navigate the influence of big data and artificial intelligence in business, we asked technology experts and business leaders this question for their best recommendations. From maintaining your identity through branding to insisting on transparency, there are several tips that may help you leverage AI and big data in business.
Here are 11 considerations about the influence of big data and AI on identity and autonomy in business:
Maintain Your Identity Through Branding
Big data and AI were designed to help your business function as seamlessly as possible, especially when you're well-informed. With so many branding options available, it would be nearly impossible to "lose your identity." Allow the gaining of data and your marketing strategies to work hand in hand to help increase your ROI and build your company's reputation. The two factors don't have to be at odds.
Ryan Rottman, OSDB Sports
Consciously Leverage Autonomy
While big data and AI may seem like they are taking away your identity and autonomy as a business, the reality is that they only do that to the extent that you let them. Any time new computer technology comes along, there are those who fear it will somehow take the place of humans, or make them obsolete; but we’re still here. Big data and AI are tools that we can use to help us do business, plain and simple. It’s up to us to make sure we still drive the business, and don’t let those tools do the thinking for us. An example would be the predictive text function in your email program; you can go with every suggestion it makes, or you can choose the words you want to use. Your autonomy is there—it’s up to you to use it.
Marcus Hutsen, Patriot Coolers
Use Data to Inform Choices
It can be frustrating at times to know that tech companies hold so much sway over whether your business succeeds or fails, but joining this new world order offers unprecedented tools that ultimately gives a company more control than it ever had. Now there are analytics on how long people stay on your landing page, which products they consider, and how often these visits convert to sales. This kind of information would be impossible to gather in physical stores. Reps can’t just stand there watching customers pick up and examine a product!? Having more information at our fingertips about consumer behavior guides our identity in a way that would be envied by executives decades ago.
Monte Deere, Kizik
Beware of Over-Personalization
Companies are using and collecting personal information, and have been doing so for decades. There’s no doubt about that. What AI and big data can do is transformational. Before, the information collected was limited and was at the most basic level. With the entrance of big data and strong AI algorithms, a wealth of information is now gathered and used to discover new patterns.
For example, it’s terrifyingly surprising that businesses can know that a customer is pregnant without soliciting or infringing the right to privacy – based solely on purchasing history. The use of big data and AI can inherently harm autonomy. By learning behavioral patterns, likes, and dislikes, companies offer you over-personalized ads, products, or services to make you ‘act now based on your impulsive selves’ – rather than based on your ‘conscious, future-self.’
Scott O'Brien, PPC Ad Lab
Improve Communication with Data
As artificial intelligence and big data become more prevalent, they are also gaining more influence over our lives. It seems that every day there is a new story about how AI will take over everything from driving cars to diagnosing diseases. As these technologies become more integrated into our lives, we must ask ourselves if we are losing our own agency by giving so much power to machines.
Because we can now communicate directly with our clients in ways that were never before imaginable, we are in a far different position than ever before. As a result, we have access to information about individuals in real-time and can target them specifically with our communications. This implies that we have more influence over how we interact with them on a personal level.
Vasco Louren?o, Vaslou
Acknowledge Hidden Discrimination
I think one of the worst case scenarios with AI and big data is that they enable organizations to discriminate based on demographics, gender, race, or ethnicity – without being caught publicly. Tech giants like Facebook offer marketing tools like that to target race-based or ethnicity-based ads – which means excluding anyone you wish to.
Another example is that insurance companies or lawyers online can charge you higher or lower prices purely based on your demographics, race, or class – and that, too, without being open about it publicly.
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That’s how big data is influencing – and, what’s unfortunate is that, to most consumers, everything is a blind-spot. Big data and AI are a threat to liberty – plus, a threat to imposing and composing behavioral changes.
Robert Warner, Virtual Valley
Keep up with Needed Skills
Bit by bit, AI is starting to change the way business is conducted. But it's happening behind the scenes, and even big data companies aren't sure when – or how – these changes will occur. When you think of business and autonomy, you might picture yourself behind a desk in a gleaming skyscraper. However, the days are gone when people go into business alone or with their partners to seek profit through selling goods and services.
Today, whether you're a growing small business or a huge corporation, you must be prepared to project yourself globally and manage multiple stakeholders in an increasingly complex environment. When it comes to business and autonomy, this means that as technology advances, so must our skills as decision-makers, planners, and operators. AI is crucial to innovation – but only if it's used correctly. This is where big data can help.
Saunav Kaushik, VinPit
Recognize Consumer Benefits
AI and big data are making a way to facilitate consumer choice, and this has a way of affecting marketers, policymakers, and consumers. Over time, consumers will be faced with more choice options and information which might end up confusing them about what to choose or not. Although technology might take away the identity and autonomy of most business owners, it can also benefit the consumers. by making consumer choices more practical, efficient, and easy as they are presented with so many options to select from. Consumers tend to have the opportunity of choosing something or trying something new. As much as this can have a negative effect on both consumers and business owners, it also has some beneficial effects.
Sarthak Kapoor, Easy People Search
Channel Resources with AI
I do not believe that big data and AI are taking away my identity and autonomy in business. I believe they are, in fact, enhancing it. Big data and AI help me know what my customers want so that I can provide it to them. They allow me to get more information about them so that I can customize their experience with my brand. They give me insights into where there might be problems or opportunities for growth—and the means to act on those insights.
AI can help me automate some of the parts of running a business that take up time and energy but don't add value for my customers. It can also help me manage relationships with suppliers, distributors, and other vendors more efficiently than before—which means less work for me while also providing better customer service! With the right tools at hand, we can use big data and AI to build better customer experiences while saving ourselves time and effort so we can focus on what matters most for our companies.
Yoav Morder, Sonary
Adapt or Be Erased
AI is being rolled out everywhere, in almost every industry. The AI tools are doing more for the user of complex and big data than ever before, and they are doing it faster and more accurately and allowing us to look at data in new ways. For example, IT Recruiting is a complex but highly manual process which, with the help of AI, is completely altering the landscape in terms of candidate sourcing and screening. Unless businesses adopt AI, AI will completely replace them and the need for any of the personal services they provide for their clients. For those reasons, it is important to walk this line carefully and adapt rather than be erased.
Thomas Crawford, Midwest Technology Partnership
Insist on Transparency
Undermining the consumers’ right to privacy and autonomy can prove detrimental. Big data and AI, in my opinion, are directly harming our privacy and autonomy – with most consumers being unaware of it. Why I say so is because two main roles big data plays for companies are interfering with the belief systems of people and creating discrimination amongst any group of people.
There’s almost zero transparency to consumers where this data is being stored or shared to. Big data is being used constantly to make decisions about individuals – therefore, they have the right to know on what basis these decisions are being made.
Joe Troyer, ReviewGrower
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Bestselling Author; Life/Work Transition Coach; Singer at JazzLove
2 年I personally align with what Marcus Hutsen, Patriot Coolers shares. Yet, what I most appreciate here is the full range of comments and viewpoints. That's not often found in one article. Well done!