Voice of Business: The Availability, Accessibility and Accuracy of AI Is Changing the Business Landscape

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Technology is continually changing business.

Over the last year, artificial intelligence (AI) has grown in its ability and accessibility to the average person and business. It has caused us to re-think what can be automated, how we shape our customer experience, and how we manage our teams.

Many of us have typically viewed automation from a more physical sense. We have machines that weld, paint, and drive heavy equipment by themselves. Now, it seems technology is coming for the creative tasks. At a recent event with local manufacturers and supply chain businesses, automation was a popular topic with a lot of it focused on artificial intelligence taking on administrative and creative work. AI is streamlining training, reporting, and administration. One manufacturing representative noted that there will always be jobs for people that work with their hands — it’s the office side of the business where jobs are being replaced by machines.

Chatbots are quickly becoming a regular point of engagement for customers as businesses are looking to save money and improve efficiency. In a time when many businesses are operating with fewer staff than they would like due to challenges attracting talent — efficiency is everything.

Hootsuite put together an article for Digital Main Street called 10 Ways an AI Customer Service Chatbot Can Help Your Business. Their suggestions for including AI Chatbots in a business include:

  1. Provide customer support in multiple languages

  2. Answer repeat FAQs and save your team time

  3. Gather customer demographic information

  4. Personalized shopping support

  5. Convert deals and upsell

  6. Anticipate trends

  7. Book in-store appointments

  8. Improve customer wait times

  9. Improve customer retention

  10. Provide a consistent user experience

The Hootsuite report includes the benefits of using AI for customer support, describing it as: “You can think of AI as one of your star customer support team members — they’re always available, never complain, and are hyper-organized”. Ultimately, AI allows you to support your customers at all hours while meeting their accessibility needs and language of choice, allowing your team to focus on other tasks.

The name getting a lot of the attention these days is ChatGPT, but it’s a quickly growing sector with a lot of options and different companies looking to offer the latest and greatest innovation. ChatGPT was recently purchased by Microsoft and included as part of their search engine, Bing, for free.

We asked the AI chatbot on Bing how businesses can use AI and it came up with its own explanation:

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an essential tool for businesses in recent years. AI can help businesses automate and optimize routine processes and tasks, which can save time and money. It can also help businesses make faster decisions based on outputs from cognitive technologies. AI can help businesses improve their productivity and operational efficiencies by reducing the time employees spend performing a task. This can lead to more work being done in less time, enhancing the company’s overall productivity.

AI can also help businesses reach a larger audience and establish long-term customer relationships. This can create customer loyalty, leading to a continuous revenue flow for the company. With time, AI is getting more sophisticated and powerful. So, it’s high time you ditch your legacy systems and integrate AI into your business operations.

However, it is important to note that there are risks associated with AI as well. Mistakes can cause massive damage to a company’s infrastructure and reputation…Cyberattacks are extremely common today, so businesses need to be aware of the vulnerability of their systems to cyberattacks.”

The availability, accessibility, and accuracy of AI is changing the business landscape. Businesses looking to tap into better use of technology can get free help from our Digital Main Street team. Get in touch with the Chamber and we’ll set you up with an expert.

Content provided by the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce.

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