The benefits of artificial intelligence are recently the subject of much debate within the news and media.
There are good points on both sides, and for many, it comes down to whether you are pro the rise of the technological age.
I for one am pro, and today I’m going to pitch my case to you.
Here are 15 critical benefits of artificial intelligence.
Do you agree?
The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare
First, let’s talk about one of my favorite topics – healthcare.
In their 2017 year review of MedTech, EY reported 2016 top line revenue growth for the industry at 6%. In addition to this, the high profile partnerships of traditional medical companies with some of our tech giants, Stryker and Microsoft, Medtronic and IBM Watson Health show us that this is something to be taken seriously.
Furthermore, there are 100s of exciting startups all clambering to show how artificial intelligence can benefit humanity.
Here’s how they’re doing it.
One of the benefits of artificial intelligence in MedTech is that it is helping develop our understanding of different symptoms, drugs, and diseases to improve how we design and treat them.
These areas include:
- Diagnosis
- Drug Development and Testing
- Treatment
Being able to process and learn from vast amounts of historical data using AI, gives Doctors a great resource to get support patients with even greater precision.
What other benefits can MedTech developments offer?
In addition to this, there is another way MedTech and health, in general, is benefited for technology advances.
- Drug Tracking – I include this one less because of the specific benefit of artificial intelligence, more because I think it is an exciting use of technology. I talk more about it in my post on Blockchain uses, however, to summarize, fake drugs are a serious risk to public health and are sold around the world. Where technology is helping is by making it easier to track real batches of different drugs so that you know where they come from and that they are safe to use.
5 Ways Businesses can Leverage the Benefits of Artificial Intelligence
Now let’s talk about business. This is probably the area where I will need to win over the fewest doubters of the benefits of artificial intelligence.
Many businesses are adopting artificial intelligence to support their processes.
Some of the different areas include
- Efficient scaling – If you’re working in a big company if something is working you want to be able to scale it quickly. It is in this application that the benefits of artificial intelligence are clear. Using AI, you can have a machine process and implement data far quicker than a person would be able to.
- Logistics – companies such as FedEx are routinely using AI to optimize their delivery routes and cut operational costs.
- Support services – Chatbots are increasingly prevalent as the first point of call for Companies managing customer service contacts. These bots are able to answer some of the more simple FAQs without the need for human interaction.
- Understanding the customer – Who is your ideal customer? What do they need? These are questions frequently asked all business owners. One of the benefits of artificial intelligence is it allows you to look at Customer data at scale. You can then determine exactly what the Customer needs to serve them better.
- Merchandising – In a world where everything is increasingly tailored towards you, marketers are able to take advantage of big data tools to test and optimize campaigns for a particular group of people. Otherwise known as their target audience.
Did you AI is also benefiting lifestyle?
I want to move on to the benefits of artificial intelligence on lifestyle.
Though I’ll admit, this, if anywhere is where you may see the benefits of artificial intelligence as subjective.
- Gaming – the rise of games leveraging Virtual and Augmented Reality are two of the most visible areas (I talk about them more in my post on AR and VR here). But the fun doesn’t stop there! As access to incorporate AI into games improves, we expect to see that games will become more personalized.
- Social media – unless you have been living under a rock completely deprived of internet access these last couple of years then you will have heard of the impact artificial intelligence has had on your social media feed. Be it Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, what you see is determined by an algorithm using AI. Whether this is a benefit of artificial intelligence, well the jury’s out, but you cannot deny the impact.
- Travel and Delivery – Living in London and being incredibly lazy I am a big fan of both Uber and Deliveroo. Both these companies use the benefits of AI to optimize journeys. This gets you, or your food, to where it needs to be as quick as possible.
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4 Companies Applying the Benefits of Artificial Intelligence to Save the Planet
The final area I want to discuss is the environment.
I think we can broadly agree that to date human beings have done a pretty crappy job of protecting the environment.
We have a mountain to climb if we’re going to save it.
But can artificial intelligence help alíviate some of that burden?
Here are some examples of companies using all the efficiency benefits of artificial intelligence to help out the environment.
- IBM Green Horizons – Using big data and artificial intelligence to improve our understanding of the environment. This will allow us to make data-driven decisions about how to tackle climate change.
- Ocean Data Alliance – Collecting data about our oceans on a large scale and using AI to help us understand them better so we can protect and preserve them for years to come.
- Planting Trees and Crops (multiple charities and organizations) – Using AI to develop robots that can be used to plant trees and crops on mass. This not only helps combat the impact of deforestation but also provides part of a scalable solution to hunger poverty where resources are scarce.
- The Internet of Things (multiple) – helping combat climate change at the grass root level. There are many devices available nowadays that help the concerned user to track their environmental impact. When tracking you can make changes to be more energy efficient. If everyone were using these devices the effect would be huge.
Whether your pro or against the technology era, I hope you can agree that the benefits of artificial intelligence are clear.
As with any new technology, however, it is down to us to safeguard the use of artificial intelligence. We are responsible for ensuring that AI is implemented to deliver these benefits.
Only then will we be able to see the benefits of artificial intelligence realized.
