What is AI and Machine Learning?
Artificial Intelligence is simply a computer program that mimics certain aspects of human thinking. Most of these programs are produced to perform narrowly focused objectives which means they cannot operate outside of the task they have been programmed for. The computer is not thinking or cognating as humans do, although it “looks” like it is. With current technology (and even emerging technologies such as OpenAI) we are still a long way away from computers being able to reason and take over the world.
Some AI systems have in-built functions to improve on themselves by learning. This is what is known as Machine Learning.
How can it be used in business?
AI is an important tool and its uses in business are growing rapidly. It’s particularly good at processing images and sound which makes it perfect many applications such as identifying certain objects in pictures or recognising sounds and associating them to things; converting spoken sound to text for example.
While the large technology such as Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon etc. develop the technologies further, they are also selling services which use them resulting technology companies developing real world applications.
With just the two core functions of AI; sound processing and image processing there becomes an endless amount of business uses.
A few real world examples
- Count people entering or leaving a building, even identifying who they are. Removing the need for clocking in.
- Look for empty parking spaces in a car park and point drivers to them.
- Record and transcribe meetings.
- Endless building security applications.
- Transcribing and categorising paper documents into text based documents such as MS Word or a PDF format.
How we can help
We’re sure that you could probably come up with lots of examples where AI could be used in your business. The difficulty is knowing how to get it done. Our Directors understand what AI can and cannot do so are well placed to deliver systems, providers and solutions where AI and Machine learning could be used within your business.