In recent months, you’ve surely heard a lot about generative artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies play an increasing role in the economy and can have a significant impact across all sectors. Artificial intelligence in business can provide you as a manager with many opportunities to grow your company. This article will help you understand both the benefits and limitations of AI and how to use it effectively.
Trends and developments in artificial intelligence
What is artificial intelligence in business?
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are constantly evolving and are now at the center of media concerns. In an open letter dated March 2023, Elon Musk called for a six-month “pause” in the development of artificial intelligence systems. A few weeks later, it was Bill Gates’ turn to respond that the brakes would do nothing to solve the challenges of this technology. But what exactly are these systems?
AI refers to the ability of a machine to emulate human intelligence to perform various tasks.
The concept covers a wide range of technologies from machine learning to text, image and other generative systems. Principle: Machines learn from data. They then process this information to understand human language and related concepts. These technologies can specifically identify an image or video, a person, etc. For businesses, artificial intelligence is becoming an essential tool. It improves its performance, encourages innovation or optimizes its processes.
Rapid development of AI capabilities for entrepreneurs
The capabilities of these systems are rapidly evolving. It provides new opportunities every day for entrepreneurs and large conglomerates.
Paradoxically, the more artificial intelligence systems evolve and make mistakes, the more they improve over time and become more efficient. Learning algorithms are constantly progressing. They make it possible to identify and even predict extremely complex processes and trends.
The number of start-up companies focused on artificial intelligence continues to grow in France. With 127 and 89 start-ups respectively in 2023, most sectors are specifically data and cloud as well as health. According to the Statista study “Artificial intelligence: how will it change our lives?” Taken in 2021, 35% of respondents from 28 different countries believe AI will have a major impact in education and 33% believe it will play a role in security.
Thus the application of artificial intelligence systems is becoming more and more perfect for entrepreneurs. Consumers also seem ready to welcome these integrations in their daily usage. According to a Statista study on acceptance and trust in AI systems by 2023, 75% of respondents in India are ready to trust AI and 67% are ready to accept it. These figures are such that 31% are ready to trust him and 23% are ready to accept him for France. However, the trend towards greater acceptance of AI is still growing. Witness the time it took for ChatGPT to reach 1 million users worldwide, according to a Statista study: 5 days. In comparison, this period was 10 months for Facebook, two and a half years for Airbnb or three and a half years for Netflix.
Opportunities provided by artificial intelligence for entrepreneurs
process automation
Automation is one of the main benefits that entrepreneurs seek in AI. Simply put, it will allow you to efficiently manage your repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as invoicing, customer support and many more. Automating some part of your processes will allow you to reduce your costs and optimize your productivity. This will allow you to better focus on your core business.
In particular, you will have more time to implement key innovations in your value proposition and implement a coherent and sustainable strategy over the long term.
This automation feature allows you to reduce human error to a great extent. This is also the main argument for AI in autonomous cars: the main source of accidents is human error. When applied to your field, this benefit will reduce defects for both repetitive tasks and the mission in continuous innovation.
Automation of complex processes and the use of advanced algorithms will contribute to greater customer satisfaction and increased reliability of your operations.
big data analysis
Artificial intelligence is mainly based on mathematical and statistical operations of “machine learning”. These are systems that are designed to learn and improve their performance based on the data they process. Thus, the more data an AI processes, the richer it is, and the more efficient it is.
It can analyze massive amounts of data to extract actionable insights. Thanks to sophisticated algorithms, you’ll be able to identify market trends, anticipate your customers’ demand, or even improve your decision making by integrating variables you might not necessarily have thought about. By examining large amounts of information, these systems give you the ability to optimize your business strategy. You also get an overview of improvements that can be made to processes within your company.
You must have understood: using artificial intelligence saves you a significant amount of time and money that would have been spent on in-depth analysis of millions of data sets. In one request, the AI ​​will provide you with a complete result that contains tons of data to improve your activity.
Personalization of Customer Experiences
The impact of AI with respect to your business relationship management and your customer journey is also noteworthy. This technology allows you to further personalize business activity and interactions with your customers. By processing massive amounts of data, you will get access to valuable findings to understand the needs and preferences of your customers, their current and future difficulties. You will be able to answer them effectively. You also have the opportunity to provide personalized product or service recommendations, special offers targeted to customer segments, and customer service tailored to individual needs. Personalizing these experiences will contribute to better customer satisfaction. This will ultimately foster customer loyalty to increase your sales.
Limitations and Ethical Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Business
AI biases and repetition of errors
One of the limitations of artificial intelligence is replicating human biases through its data analysis, task automation and predictions.
The complex algorithms programming an AI system may contain behavioral biases and even errors of interpretation or analysis.
These techniques are trained from existing data to be able to provide satisfactory results. However, if this data is initially biased in any way, this will necessarily be reflected in the AI ​​analysis. The most famous case is probably that of the ATS system, or applicant tracking system. They allow customization of applications for companies. However, if these programs are not adequately monitored, they can reproduce cases of discrimination in employment based on arbitrary or personal characteristics.
It is therefore fundamental to use artificial intelligence in a transparent and responsible manner. The interest is in minimizing these errors and guaranteeing a certain objectivity in the data analysis.
Data Security and Privacy
Because of its operation, artificial intelligence requires the collection and processing of massive amounts of data. It is therefore essential to respect the privacy of your stakeholders’ data in the course of your activity. The issue is specifically regulatory within the framework of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Parliament to guarantee the protection of personal information of customers. It is essential to ensure that the AI ​​used includes processes established since its creation to comply with applicable regulations as well as security tools in the event of a data leak or cyber attack. The amount of personal and potentially sensitive data from artificial intelligence multiplies the risks these incidents can pose to your business.
Asking for the AI ​​data policy adopted will help maintain the trust of your customers and avoid many legal issues related to these key issues in the digital age.
resulting in employment
According to a Goldman Sachs study on Generic Artificial Intelligence, AI could affect 300 million full-time jobs worldwide. These professions that are likely to be automated are part of a dynamic present long before artificial intelligence. This has happened especially through the advent of information technologies, but still remains limited. This has been significantly increased by AI. This may result in change in nature of work and market trends.
At the same time, this challenge can also be turned into an opportunity. It encourages retraining and continuous training so that everyone can adapt themselves to the changing needs of their market. According to Christopher Pissarides, productive artificial intelligence has the potential to make the 4-day work week accessible to many employees because of the productivity gains.
questions to ask
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field of computing that focuses on systems capable of emulating human intelligence to perform various tasks.
What opportunities does artificial intelligence present for my business?
AI offers many opportunities for your business, such as the ability to automate your processes, analyze large amounts of data, personalize customer experiences, reduce human error, and save time and money.
What challenges does artificial intelligence face?
The challenges of AI include, to some extent, reproduction bias and error, data security and privacy, and the impact on employment. It is therefore essential to control these biases, establish systems to secure data, and demonstrate transparency in order to anticipate labor market restructuring.