AI: Even If You Don’t Need It Right Now, It’s the Right Tech to Adopt

AI: Even If You Don’t Need It Right Now, It’s the Right Technology to Adopt  

“Artificial intelligence,” AI, is a term frequently used but rarely understood. At its most basic, AI is the simulation of human intelligence integrated into machines and achieved through the processing and analyzing of vast amounts of data. At Poeta Digital, we talk about AI in terms of machine learning: a way of using pattern recognition and predictive analysis to solve tough problems. If you’ve ever conversed with Alex or Siri, you’re using AI. Other examples include self-driving cars and conversational bots. 

AI proper, with fully responsive, independently thinking and feeling machines, is still a long way off. Today our options are twofold: reactive machines that automatically respond to a limited set or combination of inputs (e.g. Spam filters, the Netflix recommendation engine) and more advanced limited memory machines that can make decisions using historical data (e.g. chatbots, virtual assistants, etc.).

Whatever option you choose, AI is one of “4 Ways Tech Can Help Your Bottom Line”—an essential tool that can “give you the freedom to forge new paths,” because, as we know, “Without tech adoption, your business is already a step behind … If you want to be cutting edge, you need to set your business up for success by being ready for whatever is next.”

Deciding on Today’s Business Need

Despite the general push for innovation, many businesses still question whether or not they really need AI. Often we encounter businesses whose tech problems can be better solved with more conventional methods at less expense. However, even as we direct some of our customers to non-AI solutions based on our expertise in both business management and software development, we also encourage them to get ready to properly adopt AI, recognizing the competitive advantage this brings. 

MIT and BCG data reported on by Statmarket “show that organizations have a 21% of becoming marketing leaders if they focus on the initial steps of AI adoption today.” To help businesses succeed with these initial steps, Poeta Digital encourages our clients to start with data—high-quality, structured, usable data that come from knowing your own systems and processes extremely well and being clear on your business goal for AI integration. 

How Does Poeta Use AI?

At Poeta Digital, we currently use AI to create operational efficiencies for rudimentary tasks. As AI matures, of course, workflow automation will become increasingly more intuitive and adaptive. Our plan is to continue to add AI into the products that we build. Right now we clearly see a day when AI will be included in some way in most, if not all, of the applications that we publish. 

So Is AI for You?

At this point in time, augmenting humans is the most practical use of AI. Because the technology is still in development, a level of oversight is still required. Which is why, at Poeta, we employ keen human minds who know best how to solve the AI challenge to create customized, intuitive, and predictive solutions that make business processes more efficient and more cost-effective. 

There are multiple reasons to go down the AI route—funding from investors and government grant bodies, and the ability to save on human hours by creating a machine-learning model that can do the work for you. 

Machine learning—where much of AI is at today—is all about getting a process in place to build the necessary data, and structure it in a way that is usable for machine-learning purposes. Poeta Digital has the expertise to create those processes for you by providing the services and skills you need to understand and manage the data of your business. 

More than anything else, machine learning/AI is a research and development project. If you’re not investing in research and development that includes AI, you can’t possibly be building and maintaining a sustainable business for the future. Machine learning is a business benefit, and if you take advantage of the government’s SR&ED program, it’s money in your pocket, either in the form of cash or taxable write-offs. 

Next Steps

Too often, AI exists as a meaningless buzzword designed to advance marketing goals more than real business needs. Poeta Digital has analyzed its own business need for AI as well as exploring AI and machine learning on behalf of business customers across multiple sectors. 

If you are ready to invest in your future in a way that gets the most out of machine learning, we are ready and able to help you. 

We understand AI as a suite of technologies that can be highly beneficial if the business goal is clear and the need is real.

To learn more about what AI, done strategically and with a clear business need in mind, can do for you, not just today but as you build your business into a highly competitive future market, Contact us.