Let’s talk Artificial Intelligence.
First, quoting CIO Dive:
The main benefit of enterprise AI is its ability to improve planning and decision making, according to 57% of executives in a report released Monday by Cognizant. The survey consulted 1,000 executives representing 11 industry sectors.
More than half of respondents said AI was “an invaluable tool” for interpreting unstructured data (68%), predicting outcomes (62%) and gathering real-time intelligence (57%).
But strategies vary according to AI maturity levels, the report found. Just 20% of businesses are AI leaders, a category determined by the importance of AI for business processes and the number of areas where AI is deployed, the report found.
Then, from Tech Republic:
Chatbots and call center support are table stakes when it comes to implementing artificial intelligence, according to a new report. Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work found that leaders are using the automated analysis for decision support, automated reasoning, text mining, and object and speech recognition.
The survey found another differentiator among AI leaders: more sophisticated verification mechanisms. Leaders were significantly more likely to to run auto-regression tests, deploy generative adversarial networks and build explainable AI verification dashboards as compared with implementers and beginners. About 80% of leaders use those techniques compared with less than 40% of companies in the other two groups.
Chat bots and call center support being table stakes – so I ask, how many IT services providers have done this? I don’t have data in the SMB… but considering the technology is delivdred via third party products for the industry leaders in PSA… I’d infer not much.
My guidance is not “go build an AI system”. It is, however, to be considering if this powerful feature is missing from your toolbox. I’m watching for disruption in the ways (and implied, some tools) that IT services are delivered, and those that bring AI to bear as a feature will fill this gap. There’s a gap here.. and gaps are spaces for disruption.