What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a phrase used to describe machines that learn and make decisions for themselves. An AI system can interpret large amounts of data, learn from it, and make predictions. Considering the number of neural networks, statistical modeling, machine learning algorithms, and other techniques behind current AI applications, it’s not surprising that many people believe we’re living in a world with artificial general intelligence.

Why do businesses use Artificial Intelligence technology?

Businesses use AI to identify trends, predict customer behavior, and improve communication. Artificial intelligence can help businesses forecast their sales, predict customer needs, and better communicate with prospects. By making these adjustments, companies can improve their odds of closing a sale.

In other words, how do companies get more of the right tasks done? They probably don’t have enough people, time, or even energy to get everything done. Moreover, Artificial intelligence can not only help businesses identify high-worth tasks, but it can give them a heads up on when the optimal time to knock them out is.

10 Companies Who Use Artificial Intelligence

In this age of rapid technological change, it’s more important than ever for successful businesses to keep up with industry trends and implement new strategies to drive growth. Artificial intelligence has been growing as the technology continues to mature, and these ten companies have adopted AI techniques to push their businesses forward.

1- Google

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, looks beyond search engines and online advertising to deliver fully autonomous cars. Alphabet’s self-driving technology division, Waymo, has been working on self-driving technology since 2009.

Today, Waymo has the potential to transform the transportation industry — not just by reducing crashes and traffic but also in terms of revolutionizing the way people commute. Built from the ground up with safety in mind, its autonomous vehicles are currently shuttling riders around California in self-driving taxis.

Google has already revolutionized search with its AI technology. Google’s DeepMind program made waves in 2015 when it mastered 49 different Atari games — and was soon able to beat human opponents at the game of Go. Now, it’s working on building other applications that show off the potential of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the Google Assistant is already altering how people interact with devices.

2- Amazon

Amazon has become the undisputed leader in e-commerce, using artificial intelligence to offer innovative solutions for consumers and business clients alike. Using information technology, Amazon wants users to have an enjoyable shopping experience, no matter what device they are using. By tapping into consumer data and analyzing it and other factors, Amazon can predict which goods will be bestsellers, even before consumers know their needs.

Amazon Go is changing how you shop, offering convenience like never seen before. Amazon Go stores are fully automated, eliminating the need for checkouts and bagging. Amazon Go can track what you pick up in-store using sensors and artificial intelligence, eliminating dreaded lines and waiting. This unprecedented level of customer experience has made Amazon Go stores one of the most successful e-commerce concepts ever.

3- IBM

For over 20 years, IBM has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence developments. The company made waves with its Deep Blue computer in 1997, which was the first to beat a chess grandmaster. If that wasn’t enough, IBM also made headlines in 2011 with Watson, a Jeopardy-playing computer system. The company is now pushing artificial intelligence boundaries with Project Debater, an AI system designed to debate human opponents.

4- Microsoft

Microsoft is putting artificial intelligence at the core of all its projects. Cortana, Skype, Bing, and Office 365 are examples of AI projects from the tech giant, an important AI as a Service (AIaaS) vendor. In other words, they’re one of the world’s biggest providers of cloud-based artificial intelligence services.

5- Alibaba

Next on the list is Alibaba. With over $229 billion in projected annual sales, Alibaba is the world’s largest online commerce platform. Renowned for its prowess in data analysis and AI implementation, the company has revolutionized the way businesses interact with potential customers. Currently, it generates thousands of product descriptions for use in its marketplace through natural language processing alone.

Using artificial intelligence, Alibaba has helped cities in China become safer and more efficient. City Brain, an online platform that uses mapping, data analysis, and surveillance to help monitor urban areas, helps reduce traffic jams by providing real-time data about traffic flow patterns. Alibaba Cloud is also assisting farmers to monitor crops using AI technology to optimize agricultural efficiency and cut costs for farmers.

6- Apple

Apple is spearheading the artificial intelligence and machine learning movement. Some of its platforms and products, like FaceID and the AirPods (a wireless earpiece and charging case), wouldn’t be possible without AI. The iPhone giant also uses machine learning to support voice assistants like Siri and curate user experience when they visit its website.

Apple is also investing in services. The Cupertino tech giant uses artificial intelligence to help you find and discover files and photos. It’s even making it easier for you to navigate your way to a meeting with the help of its Maps app.

7- Facebook

Facebook’s artificial intelligence helps to decipher the billions of posts on its site so that users can find the content they want more quickly. DeepText, a text understanding engine, automatically understands and interprets thousands of posts’ content and emotional sentiment in multiple languages every second.

By helping users further connect with their online community, Facebook’s deep learning helps create a better user experience for both new visitors and regular readers of the site.

8- Spotify

Spotify is more than just a music streaming service — it’s an entirely virtual environment that can tell you what song to play next and how to feel about it. Spotify can track listeners’ music preferences and insert them into a learning algorithm to make the perfect musical recommendations every time with its deep learning algorithms. From trending tracks and top charts to personalized playlists, Spotify is more than just a music streaming service — it’s an integral part of our daily lives.

In addition, Spotify now uses predictive analytics to explore a user’s preferences and provide a more customized listening experience. Based on a person’s listening habits, the company can identify songs they don’t know but might enjoy listening to.

9- Under Armor

The Under Armor Record app is a tool that helps athletes monitor their workouts, sleep quality, and nutrition. Using data collected from the app, Record users can receive personalized recommendations for food and training. The tool was built with IBM Watson to offer customized workout plans based on progress made through the app.

10- Baidu

Baidu has one of the most advanced artificial intelligence research departments globally. While some of its AI systems are still developing, others are already transforming aspects of daily life. One of the most impressive examples is Deep Voice, an artificial intelligence system that can perfectly imitate someone’s voice after hearing just a few words or even just one. Baidu also uses artificial intelligence to transform book reading into a personalized experience with “Read by Baidu.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) take your job?

It’s a question that’s been on many for years now. It’s true; artificial intelligence is advancing at a fast pace. But this statement that AI will steal your jobs in the future can almost be considered a myth. The idea that AI will replace all human activities and take over the tasks of the modern world is simply hypothetical.

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) take over the world?

Robot movies of old depict AI-controlled creations as all-powerful entities. However, modern-day technology has not yet brought us to the point where devices like robots can surpass the capabilities of their creators. There is no room for complacency; experts predict that true AI will be here in the following decades and will continue to evolve rapidly over the coming years.

How Powerful is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

The answer to how powerful AI is in this modern-day age depends on the developer’s skill who’s programming it. The more skilled the programmer, the better the AI model will solve more complex tasks.

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are powerful tools that can accelerate computing for AI models. Right now, AI is especially good at complex tasks that it’s given because it does these tasks well and quickly. But AI hasn’t reached its peak yet; we’re still a few years away from that point.

You learned about who uses Artificial Intelligence. Now what?

In conclusion, Artificial Intelligence will continue to guide companies toward building user experiences that are more efficient and technologically advanced. The technologies that AI is driving will only increase — eventually encompassing almost every facet of our daily lives. The goal is to make it easy for businesses to create an excellent experience for their customers while reducing stress on employees and making everyday life more convenient.

Whether you know it or not, as a customer, you probably have interacted with artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence or AI is the use of machines to problem-solve and make decisions based upon human comprehension.

When we do a Google search, open our Facebook newsfeed, or receive a product recommendation from Amazon, AI lurks in the background.

To find the recipe for success, AI must pass the “Turing Test.” The Turing test occurs when human interaction tries to distinguish if the response is human or a machine. The more human-like response that happens means a better customer experience. A better customer experience means a successful interaction.

What is AI Customer service?

Artificial intelligence takes data and uses it to identify the best representative available to address the customer’s needs. It then provides the customer representative with necessary background information before they interact with the customer.

Voice AI and chatbots are two types of artificial intelligence in the customer service industry. Voice AI is a tool that uses voice commands to receive and interpret directives. Devices can, in turn, interact and respond to human questions.  A chatbot is typically an online computer program. It interacts with a human through either written or verbal communication. The device’s simulation processes the human conversation as if they were communicating with a natural person.

Benefits Of Using AI In Customer Service

You may be wondering how can AI in customer service be beneficial. Overall you want to provide your customers the best overall experience. Here are some ways AI can help provide a successful solution to the problems your customers might be experiencing.

 1- Allows a layer of 24/7 Customer Support

A customer with an important question is easily frustrated by not being able to receive help. Especially if the inquiry is service-specific, limited customer support hours may leave a customer waiting multiple days with no help in sight.

Customer service chatbots and automated assistance can fill this void. Creating a database with a warehouse of answers can allow chatbots to answer specific questions. These answers can help improve the customer experience without the need for available staff.

The chatbots may not be able to answer unique and complex customer problems. However, it is suitable for fundamental issues from many customers.

 2- Cost Reduction

Onboarding new employees in a call center are costly. The number of employees needed to operate the call center can affect the bottom line.

As new employees acclimate to the new environment, veteran staff still have a more significant portion of the workload. The extra load on veteran employees decreases their performance and reduces overall call quality.

Call centers have a painfully high turnover rate. Unfortunately, this means new hires get expensive, especially with proper training considerations.

As you can imagine, an AI chatbot is capable of providing customers similar knowledge. Chatbots allow some essential services while reducing the overall cost. This AI solution enables customer representatives to focus on more challenging problems.

3- Reduction in Waiting

When a customer needs assistance, AI is capable of filling in the gaps. A customer typically provides name, address, phone, reference number, and other essential details. AI can collect this info automatically and employ predictive methods to direct the caller to their solution correctly.

Typically customer representatives handle the primary inputs to extend the process. But an AI chatbot takes this data and streamlines the callers’ needs to an appropriate resolution, leading to reduced wait times.

AI’s ability to route calls to the proper technician not only reduces wait times it provides a better customer experience. Customers hate being transferred multiple times. Reducing this issue helps give a better experience.

4- Evolving Technology

There can be a significant risk of losing out on efficiencies and competitive advantages from technological innovations for a modern and professional business. AI customer service is the wave of the future.

As AI technology expands, the capacity of AI to respond to consumer inquiries becomes more contextualized.

The current technology is considered reactive in its current state. Initially, some find chatbots capable of answering more complex questions than expected. Some AI algorithms even predict the type of questions to expect. Thus, Chatbots can provide answers before a question is asked.

The technology is not perfect as it is still growing. As automation evolves, expect AI to become more commonplace as a customer experience.

5- AI in Social Media Messaging Apps

Voice AI is not the only AI service. Chatbots play a vital role in AI customer service, answering questions. The rise of social media apps has seen increase business profiles. Over 1.5 billion people on Facebook means businesses need to be ready to communicate with potential customers at any moment.

A person can quickly seek support through the messaging app instead of a voice call. Utilizing AI chatbots can offer a whole new realm of service to this statistic, improving company efficiency overall.

How to use AI in Customer Service?

Implementation of high-quality customer service AI is not a quick installation. Knowing how to implement AI customer service industry needs to be well thought out.

First, you need to define your business needs. Here you will need to determine the problems you want AI to solve. Asking yourself what the main obstacles AI can solve can help you produce a successful model.

Once your business needs are defined, you must identify your AI project’s potential business and financial benefits. Consider all the possible AI implementations. Bridge each plan with how it will improve or hinder current customer service solutions.

Then you can focus on near-term goals and illustrating financial or business value as best you can.

Once you have a list of potential solutions, you can slowly integrate them into the daily workflow. Start small and analyze how it fits into your business processes. Explore if adding an AI-based solution would boost your operation over the long term.

Next, you will need to create the AI platform. You will need to evaluate whether your internal employees can develop artificial intelligence within a given time frame.

Prioritizing which objectives can be completed in-house and what needs to be contracted out to AI software specialists. The goals should include:

It is worth researching existing solutions before you begin your AI development. The most cost-effective approach could be direct integration. Knowing others’ answers will help design the product as you find the pros and cons of each product.

When you have a design approach developed, consult a domain special

You may already have a highly skilled developer team that can build your AI project. Though a domain specialist has the expertise to further iron out any pitfalls you may have missed.

Remember when developing AI is not the same as building typical software. AI is difficult to learn as it is a hyper-specific programming niche. Experience with the human interaction aspect is needed to create the proper algorithms.

Once you have the software created, you will need to implement your datasets. Here it is essential to start small. Work out the incoherent information AI might be translated to your customer. It is vital to provide the most accurate information possible.

The most advanced algorithms in the world can not always provide the results you want. It is essential to do user testing in your development. You can provide high-quality data to work from, but the information provided might be inaccurate. Organize, update, and expand your dataset as things are corrected.

What are the Downfalls of AI in Customer Services?

Many great benefits exist when using chatbots and artificial intelligence to augment customer support, but this does not mean it lacks drawbacks. Even if you are considering integrating AI, it is wise to understand the potential downside.

1- Improper Escalation

 While we have discussed in length the significant benefits of context-ready AI, this solution has not been perfected for many businesses. Even with its improvements, AI is bounded by a scope. Unique customers issues can have the phone call routed to the wrong department.

When voice AI routes the call to the wrong technician, this provides a poor experience for the customer. The customer representative then has to transfer the customer over to the correct area to answer the customer’s question.

2- Machine Interaction

Most people have a strong dislike for automated calls. While a machine can direct fundamental problems to easy solutions, it may not address the entire scope of a caller’s concern.

Considering callers need assistance for various reasons, it’s not uncommon for them to have feelings of frustration or anger. Machine and AI respondents can exacerbate this problem, whereas human representatives are more comforting.

3- Cost and Maintenance

Because AI chatbots and artificial intelligence-driven customer support are complex, they require an educated staff for proper management.

Installation, creation, and “education” of bots need ongoing data management. Employees with specific coding experiences in Visual Basic are necessary to create upgrades to the databases.

As you can expect, further developing AI technology can be expensive. The experience of the specialized staff is only one expense. Utilizing third-party services for chatbots and AI services is another expense. While the software might be easily accessible, this way, it has annual fees.

What is the Future of AI in Customer Service

Artificial Intelligence isn’t a newborn baby now. It’s grown enough and is being embraced by many industries. Artificial Intelligence by customer service teams is expected to rise by 143% in the following year.

The actual rise will determine the overall need for AI customer service in businesses. Customers are being impatient and asking more and more queries, but work hours are still limited. Companies have no time to handle every customer personally, so they’re shifting towards AI to automate this job for them.

If you haven’t thought to use them so far, think again because the future isn’t very far. Those who’ll start using AI from now will have an edge in the future.

Conclusion

Greater demand for better customer service experiences has created a need to seek automated solutions from Artificial Intelligence. Evolving technology from automatic responses has made extraordinary advancements every year. 

Improving the ability to navigate and adapt to specific situations is improving the customer experience.

As customer service is associated with brand strength, it’s worth looking into chatbots. Artificial intelligence-based support to handle the torrent of issues can improve customer service across the board.

Removing mundane queries can expedite customer representatives’ time. It is crucial to maintain a dialogue with customers throughout the year. Cutting out these queries helps decrease extra labor-associated costs in the call center.

When you ask yourself, “How can I provide the best customer service experience” it is essential to think about how AI can supplement the pitfalls in your current company’s customer service model.

AI might be the right call. Indeed, we’re a long way from a comprehensive AI customer service experience. It is difficult to argue against providing customers an ’employee’ that passed the Turing test.