This article has been written by Manju Thomas pursuing a Training program on Using AI for Business Growth from Skill Arbitrage.

This article has been edited and published by Shashwat Kaushik.

AI and the business vision

To be successful, the minimum requirement for any business is to have a vision. That gives the clarity and purpose for its operations. AI can be fine-tuned for the business to grow exponentially. Technology driven AI can resonate with the business vision to take the organisation up the ladder. Aligning and training the employees makes the implementation  easier.

Impact of AI

• AI alters the routine tasks by making smaller changes and by putting in lesser efforts embracing new technologies.
• Transition to a user friendly and easily accessible process with self training modules to easily adapt to changes if possible with AI.
• Integrating systems  for easy exchange of data and better collaboration leads to better data visibility and data analytics so as to enable informed decision making.
• AI tools help in translating complex data sets or raw data into actionable insights in a smarter, efficient and faster way.
• AI results in improved productivity and in creating a competitive edge.

AI gives a competitive edge

Implementing AI leads to higher levels of accuracy and lesser lead time. This in turn reduces the cost of operations in an immense way. High-value output and mass production improve the scalability of business.

Industries to adopt AI

Manufacturing industry

• AI automation of systems in factories streamlines the processes and steps involved. This boosts productivity.
• Predictive maintenance is possible with AI as it provides advanced warning systems. Usually equipment maintenance is a time consuming process. The advanced warning enables the organisation to take anticipatory measures which helps in reducing the production costs.
• Demand forecasting through AI driven data analysis empowers the manufacturer to stock products accordingly. So there is no understocked or overstocked situation.

Healthcare

• AI tools analyse the patient data to understand the type of patients and rise in certain types of diseases,   so that doctors can take informed decisions and suggest the right course of treatment. NLP(Natural Language Processing) applications provide comprehensive and structured data, which allows doctors to take informed decisions on the course of treatment. 
• Advanced AI models can interpret visuals of medical reports, food labels or even physical injuries and engage in follow-up conversations. India’s first medical multimodal large language model (LLM), built by Fractal, is giving access to millions of Indians to quality  healthcare and empowering people with information. This will help the patients to be prepared for a doctor’s visit or to understand a medical report which has complex medical knowledge with much more clarity.

Retail

• Operations are automated for smooth functioning using AI.
• Demand forecasting helps with inventory management as well as supply chain management.
• Customer enquiries as well as product support is more efficient with virtual assistance.

Industrial sectors like telecom, finance, construction, logistics and transportation have adopted AI for many of its functions. 

AI and business development

Approaching the potential customer at the right time is key to the growth of any business. To reach the potential customer, lead generation is essential. AI algorithms can analyse a large pool of data to target the right customer with accuracy and provide a personalised experience. AI tools can predict the buying behaviours of customers. So targeting the right customer has never been so easy.

AI in education 

Innovative teaching and learning practices with a human-centric approach have transformed the educational sector. Knowledge access at fingertips is no longer a dream for people living in rural locations. AI for all gives hope to explore all possibilities in moving ahead in the knowledge sector for everyone.

AI in governance

The 24*7 availability of government services through online applications becomes available to all with the power of AI. Automation of services ensures transparency and reduces corruption. Information gathering is simplified for both the government and the citizens or businesses. From maintaining public infrastructure to rapid disaster response, from security mechanisms to law enforcement, AI has made incomparable progress. Government officials are able to save quality time as AI has reduced the paperwork and improved the query response time.

AI in security

AI empowers defence and cyber security. AI based solutions will help in border surveillance using cameras, radars, etc. Drones equipped with AI-based aircraft technology can function at any time of the day. Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems(LAWS) with preprogrammed algorithms can help to identify and track hostile targets. AI helps with data management and accurate data analysis enables the defence and security departments with actionable intelligence. It can effectively analyse large amounts of attack data and DNS queries every day. This will help in the detection and mitigation of cyber threats.

Success insights of AI

Artificial intelligence encourages a strategic transformation that improves scalability with competing products and services without incurring additional costs. There will be initial hiccups with respect to integrating AI with the business and getting the right talent. But these will be overcome in a short span of time.

The change aiming towards a better future of business becomes possible as AI has shown the way for numerous possibilities of improvement. In this fast-paced world, AI is able to give a personalised experience to all the stakeholders of a business-from management and employees to the end customer. 

AI concerns on data protection

Implementation of AI involves security concerns for most businesses. Businesses must implement data securing measures to secure the information.

AI in the years to come

AI driven data analytics will lead to identifying trends, optimising operations and making informed decisions. In addition, automation of routine tasks allows the business drivers to focus on strategies, saving time and effort and leading to growth and innovation. As data is the king, anything that hinders its privacy will affect the organisation. It presents the importance of spending money towards ethical and secure solutions in business too so that the changes do resonate with the vision and culture of the organisation.

Industry giants like Reliance Industries are taking the leap as deep tech innovators to bring AI through the Jio Brain to every Indian. By embedding AI into all their processes and operations, with real time data driven insights and automation the organisation is aiming to generate smarter and more responsive services. Retail, agriculture, education, healthcare and entertainment sectors will greatly benefit from this. In addition services like Jio Phonecall AI that allows users to record and store any call in Jio Cloud and automatically transcribe it. Call summary in text form and translating it to any language will be easily possible with AI inclusion.

Leveraging AI technology and creating AI models for social good is the focus of the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The organisation works closely with the Indian government to define problems, identify data sets, and come up with solutions that create an impact in society. Media Disease Surveillance that captures media reports in health alerts to inform authorities and to be proactive in tackling contagious diseases is an example. Measuring newborns weight, length, head circumference and chest circumference through videos taken by front line health workers of ASHA simplifies their work and the data is automatically captured accurately in the government registers is another example of automatic digitisation.

Reasons for higher productivity using AI

AI is becoming a game changer sorts across the industries, but one of the best things it’s bringing to the table is productivity improvement. This increased efficiency can be traced back to  a few of the central capabilities AI has to offer:

Market analytics and demand forecasting: AI-based tools can intake large chunks of information from market trends, social media, and customer behaviour data. These insights help businesses to predict market changes and customer needs more accurately. Being proactive enables to optimize the planning of production, management of inventory and allocation of resources, minimizing waste and maximizing efficiency.

This allows checking all equipment performance immediately to help actually reduce system wait time. Sice models are continuously learning from production data, these ML models can detect bottlenecks and inefficiencies as well. This enables real-time tweaks for production settings, with benefits in terms of output and reduced downtime.

AI-based data analytics and decision making: One of the main key areas of development for businesses is AI based data analytics. These insights can shape strategic decision-making at every level of an organization from operational line business decision-making on the factory floor through to high level business strategies. This is driving fact-based decision-making, which in turn is driving productivity.

Impact of AI

Task automation: AI is changing the way we work, for instance, automating boring and repetitive tasks has been taking away a lot of human resource efforts for quite a while now. This enables organizations to delegate to AI-powered solutions, allowing the workforce to focus on more strategic, creative, and value-added pursuits. This change can not only maximize efficiency and productivity but also boost overall work satisfaction and engagement by enabling people to focus on work that brings them more fulfilment.

Faster processes: Integration of AI simplify complex processes with smart automation and easily usable user interfaces. Help automate processes, remove data entry, and guide users through workflows in a step-by-step manner, reducing complex processes to a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. This abstraction lowers the barrier to entry with new technologies, makes it easier for organisations to be agile in their operations, and reduces the possibility of making a mistake.

With guided learning comes the advantage of self-training: A significant element of AI-based systems is their self-learning and adaptable character. A self-improvement self-training module indeed incorporated into all AI solutions where they would analyse new data and accordingly modify their algorithms to improve their performance. Second, the inherent flexibility of AI helps ensure that the AI solutions can adapt to changes in the business environment or business need.

Improved collaboration and data transparency: Artificial intelligence is able to help the integration of diverse systems and data in a simple way; this leads to the breakdown of the information known as silos and promotes collaboration among all departments. AI is allowing for real-time data sharing for a unified view of information, which in turn enables teams to collaborate more efficiently, make better decisions through increased visibility, and adapt quickly to new opportunities or challenges.

Advanced data analytics: The size and complexity of data that modern-day businesses generate is a monumental challenge. Analytics tools powered by artificial intelligence are great at processing and analysing large datasets, being able to find hidden patterns, correlations, and trends that could easily be missed. These insights can be harnessed to streamline operations, uncover new market opportunities, personalise customer experiences, and provide a competitive advantage.

With continued advancements in AI technology, we only anticipate that the impact on the workplace will grow, and therefore adopting AI-driven solutions is essential to organisations that want to stay competitive in an ever-evolving world of work.

By incorporating AI into their operations, firms enjoy higher productivity, greater efficiency, and a more significant competitive advantage. AI allows organisations to optimise operations and make better strategic decisions by automating repetitive tasks, simplifying processes, and providing advanced analytics.

Conclusion

AI is creating a significant impact in our daily lives and is going to change the way we plan, build and deliver products and services. It has the potential to transform human capabilities in specific domains. A new talent pool is the need of the hour, which pronounces the need for AI literacy to be mandatory at all levels of education and social setup. Once the foundation for the same is laid, native skills can be developed, and in no time AI can go local. The advancements, including GenAI, can harness the AI’s potential and leverage it to aim for a secure digital experience.