The artificial intelligence debate is widely publicised with extreme calls that the technology could kill humanity, but there is more potential that can be unlocked for businesses to generate content, improve customer experiences and also enhance productivity
Generative artificial intelligence or generative AI is a type of system that is capable of generating text, images or other media by using prompts. The technology learns the patterns and structures of the data inputted and then generates new data that has similar characteristics.
Actually, artificial intelligence isn’t a new concept, but tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E have boosted the visibility and attraction of artificial intelligence technology to the mainstream and offer massive benefits to content creators amongst other creatives professionals.
Generative AI is already being used across many different industries to support a wide range of business operations – the adoption of the technology is to optimise performance, automate certain tasks and increase productivity. However, there is speculation that the technology is responsible for large cull in talent dubbed to be ‘taking over jobs and being a much more cost-effective solution’ one must understand that the technology increases the power of what can be achieved and will drive the creation of new types of roles.
The use cases so far demonstrate how beneficial generative AI can be to increasing efficiency, lowering costs and accelerating consumer engagement; industries ranging from banking to hospitality, advertising to research can been seen now turning to generative AI, so how can generative AI boost productivity in business? Well let’s take a look:
Rapid content creation
This is probably one of the most obvious and immediately accessible areas of generative AI adoption; marketers are using the technology to optimise copy, developing hooks and sequences that will enable smoother prospect onboarding. But the use for content creation is also expanding now to more tangible value such as blogs, newsletters. Adobe has adopted generative AI (Sensei) to allow their users to create images through description; Descript is an AI tool that collates data and converts into video with royalty free video overlay, machine-based narration and subtitles making news and shortform information more accessible. But this use isn’t new, for years we have had Grammarly which is a text editor that seeks spelling, grammar and also plagiarism
Accelerate customer experience
We are already seeing AI being adopted into increasing customer interaction; the adoption of chatbots is synonymous with increasing the customer experience; hospitality, travel, healthcare and even insurance companies are now bringing in a layer of AI as the first response system. Again this isn’t revolutionary, before chatbots we had telephony systems which were automated and served as the first contact touchpoint for customers.
Personalisation
Generative AI can really help business step up their personalisation game; using machine learning algorithms, businesses can obtain critical data related to purchase history, buying behaviour and develop predictive behavioural protocols that will aid things like recommendations and driving new prospects to their solutions/services. A great example of this is what we experience through platforms like Amazon, Netflix and Spotify; all these platforms adopt predictive behaviour modelling – this is the science of building algorithmic models and training then based on historical data to predict future behaviour
Analysis and knowledge management
Knowledge is power and all businesses now live within a data economy; the power of data mining, process and transformation are critical to the sustainability and scalability of any business in any industry. The use of generative AI and coding supports the process of data mining, processing and transformation to allow effective decision making and initiate competitive advantage. We are seeing an increase in Software as a Service (SaaS) that provides tools to crunch data and display on dashboards in a manner to assist business owners make critical decisions. Accounting software to support payroll, tax and cashflow, Affiliate software to increase sales and marketing, Cybersecurity and Research software to mine and detect risk through processing huge vats of datasets.
As in the Marvel movies… ‘with great power comes great responsibility…’ this statement is very true and relevant to what we are experiencing with artificial intelligence. The power and potential of generative AI is boundless as it will continue to grow and learn the more it is adopted and used. Businesses should not shy away from adopting generative AI but must also practice ‘common sense’ in its application. As we discussed above there are many cases and evidence of how generative AI can boost productivity in business. But, it is the responsibility of the business to understand how and where generative AI will boost their business and apply that strategy.
