AI for business: Where to start

Fans of the hit, Netflix-developed show Black Mirror would tell you that technology is a double-edged sword.  The leaps and bounds that mark technological advancement are often fraught with peril in the heads of science fiction fans. Since the writers of these types of shows often portray the negative rather than the positive, we can assure you that working technology into your business will not cause the world to crumble. Further, even one of the most sci-fi-esque of these technologies is super approachable. AI for business, something we’re sure you’ve heard about, is the perfect intro.  

What is AI?

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. To put it quite simply, AI refers to when a computer or machine carries out a task that would have ordinarily required a human. As Jim Wu writes for Search Engine Land, it “can be used to categorize natural language processing, chess playing, driverless cars and millions of examples in between.” Unless you’re Elon Musk, (if you are Elon Musk, please reach out to hello@roimediaworks.com and we’ll get back to you with a marketing proposal) driverless cars are not on your business’ radar. But those other million examples definitely should be.   

So, are there really one million AI for business applications?

Okay, maybe we did exaggerate that you should be aware of one million potential AI for business applications. But, here are some highlights from a list put together by Econsultancy.

• Under Armour worked with IBM to develop an AI-based mobile app to tailor workouts to the app’s users. (Sorry to hit you with some ROI Media Works blog post Inception, but this is an example of Under Armour utilizing something we wrote about a few months back: native advertising).
• Google uses AI to help themselves with the tremendous amounts of search inquiries they receive.
• There is a burgeoning notion that AI could take in trends and sales data to automatically price products with extreme accuracy and relevancy.
• AI is at the forefront of customer segmentation, taking in customer data then establishing an exact customer profile.
• Chatbots combine what they know about their brand and basic conversational interaction to handle customer inquiries.

Where should businesses start?

There is no perfect, all-encompassing answer for this. But, there are plenty of ideas. Forbes, Microsoft and Mashable all offer you their services in different ways. No matter what avenue you do choose for AI, pick something your business is passionate about improving. It won’t just be AI for business anymore, it’ll be AI for YOUR business.