Role of Artificial Intelligence in Business Development

Artificial intelligence is the science behind the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence to complete. Some of these tasks include visual perception, language translation, independent decision-making, intelligent document processing, and speech recognition..From the mindset of AI taking over the world in the Terminator movies, we haven’t had much confidence in sharing data with these intelligent machines up until now. Concepts such as machine learning, deep learning, and artificial general intelligence are reshaping the world around us. AI is making a strong comeback and by exploring the full potential of AI, the tech industry is utilizing it in every way possible.

Below are some noteworthy fields in which AI is doing wonders

Website Automation

Websites are built using all sorts of different processes e.g. WordPress, Drupal, Hugo and languages such as HTML, CSS, and JS. A web programmer’s learning is limited in a sense that nobody can learn everything. If intelligent systems are trained in a way that they encompass all aspects of web development, it would definitely make life much easier.

The idea of automating not only the website making process but the entire business has taken off rapidly in the past couple of years.

Understanding the Customer Need

Web analytics have changed the way businesses and executives model their website, AI takes it to a whole new level. Intelligent algorithms can tell you what exactly visitors are looking for on a website, which products to showcase and which they dislike.

Having this valuable data on hand and then automatically redesigning the layout of your business website, is bound to affect your revenue in a positive way. Specifically talking in the context of e-commerce where most selling items if not displayed appropriately to customers,  could potentially make or break your business.

Training Search Engines

With the introduction of personal virtual assistants and the exponential rise in voice search, search engines themselves need to be retrained. E-Businesses which encapsulate natural language search in their models will have an unparalleled advantage over those that don’t.

The trend shift of millennials opting voice search over conventional typing means that visibility criteria for websites and businesses will change. Digital marketer must now accommodate the need for natural language based search.  

User Interaction

The introduction of AI in web features such as online chat has revolutionized user interaction. With chatbots getting more and more human feel each day, the confidence level of the user is rising as well. Not to mention the cost cutting that comes with having a 24/7 AI customer support.

With AI virtual assistants making appointments for people, it is high time that companies too have intelligent systems in place to respond because nobody wants to be kept waiting on the phone.

Sephora has an AI chatbot so intelligent that it lets potential clients test makeup runtime by asking for their pictures. Similarly, it can provide you with video tutorials that will help you visualize whether a particular shade would suit you or not.

This advancement in chatbots helps increase the confidence of the consumer in the product many a fold, potentially increasing sales.  

Few businesses are also using AI for rental property calculation, which uses big data to estimate the land value.

AI Web Development Platforms

Wix has emerged as one of the leading web development platforms that heavily relies on AI. With a user base of over 119 million, you can build your website with simple drag and drop actions.

Wix provides its users with a range of templates depending upon the type of website they intend to build e.g. static, e-commerce, sales page etc. Over 50 templates are available for visitors to choose from. The downside to it is that if you intend to do intensive customization or scale your website, this is not the platform for you.

Molly is another platform that claims to use AI in its web development platform. Unfortunately, it’s idea couldn’t catch on because the end result was pretty standard. Also, the claims of extraordinary AI didn’t live up to their expectation.

Another noteworthy mention here is Firedrop. Its top feature is an AI-based chatbot that guides you through the entire web development process. It is rated as one of the top web development platforms available in the market today.

Identifying Potential Viral Content

In a race to break the news first, identifying authentic developing stories is the key to success. This is where AI stretches its legs. Tech giants, Google and Microsoft have most recently launched highly intelligent news aggregators that provide an overview of developing stories.

Bing Spotlight not only presents headlines to its readers but instead showcases a particular news on the time-relevance plane. It gives you an overall sense of how the story has developed over time. Not only that it verifies the story from authentic sources to retain the trust of the reader.

“Users’ trust in the news we present is of the utmost importance to Bing,” the Bing team wrote, “and we’re committed to providing a well-rounded view of news from diverse, quality sources.”

Rewind a few months and Google released an updated version of Google New app. The newer version is loaded with AI and is quickly becoming a favorite among news junkies. With categories such as For You, Headlines, Favorites, and Newsstand, it lets you dive into a story after story pertaining to a particular topic.

Not only that it lets you compare how a news is being reported by various sources. Dig down even deeper and you enter the realm of relevant tweets and “opinion” coverage, in addition to straightforward news stories.

Another app that is making headlines nowadays is Contentstudio. It uses advanced AI and sophisticated machine learning algorithms to create custom topic feeds using relevant search terms and domains to monitor content from the web and social media.

In addition to that, you can annotate, publish or schedule content to multiple social and blogging channels at once from one single platform.

Helping Investors in Decision Making

Investing in StartupsStartups have always had it rough. With a 90% failure rate, redundancies, budget cuts and barely making rent, it is a very slippery slope. The ones which do break through have to charm VC’s and investors to piggyback them to scale. This is probably the toughest part of the job.

Irrelevant attributes such as race, gender, personal characteristics and alma mater often dissuade decision makers from investing their money. No matter how genius or groundbreaking the idea might be, lack of statistics to support its true potential might lead founders with empty pockets.

A similar case study shows that between 2011 and 2013, women raised a mere 1.5 billion USD from a grand total of 51 billion USD handed out by VC’s. This is alarmingly low. Also, companies with all male executives were 4 times more likely to woo investors as compared to those with women.

AI can be the third eye that provides clear insight into the companies potential merit. Gathering concrete data and presenting it in a meaningful manner would enable VCs to make a decision based upon true potential.

Alice is one such AI platform. It is designed to help women, veterans, people of color, and LGBT entrepreneurs grow their companies. June Manley, another female entrepreneur who faced gender discrimination firsthand while pitching her software enterprise idea to investors.

• In 2017, startups led by female founders received only 3% of total VC funding.
• In 2017, of the companies that VCs funded, only 5-10% were founded by women.
• In 2017, on average, a VC deal for a female-founded startup was 33% smaller than the male-founded counterpart.

This didn’t break her spirit as she founded “Female Founders Faster Forward” to help eliminate this biasness.

How AI is Engulfing Supply Chain Management

The science behind SCM might not be visible or appreciated by the common man, but AI infused models are doing wonders for the industry. Challenges and complexities native to this field have been colossal. Machine learning has enabled companies to identify demand patterns, assembly line bottlenecks and human limitations.

Amazon, which has probably the biggest SCM system, utilizes AI to predict future demand. It can actually predict the ordering sequence up to 18 months in advance. It analyzes logistical clogs and consumer trends to make these decisions.

Perceptive Nature of AI

With its highly reliable predictive nature, AI can warn managers of potential delays. Take for example the service of robots or replacing machine parts. Knowing the full working capacity of machines and having trained models can enable intelligent machines to warn operators of potential breakdowns.

This knowledge can help reduce downtime or allow to arrange for alternatives so that the process does not stop. The same methodology can also be applied to the assembly line, procurement, and packaging.

Extending the use of AI to the final step of SCM i.e. distribution. Vehicles can be guided using AI to reduce the amount of time needed for delivering items. Understanding traffic patterns, deploying sensors and use of GPS can help guide autonomous vehicles or delivery truck to reach their desired destinations almost always on time.

AI in Digital Marketing Arena

Like all other fields, digital marketers were also reluctant to incorporate AI in their marketing strategies. That has changed. As AI evolves, the ambiguity surrounding its potential has rapidly decreased. This newly found confidence has forced marketing professionals to rethink their strategies altogether.

A survey by salesforce highlights that 51% of digital marketers have incorporated AI into their strategy. This percentage is set to increase by an additional 27% by next year. Relying on AI by decision-makers who have da direct impact on a business’s revenue is a testament to how rapidly it has evolved.   

Content Generation

The concept of a machine writing by itself, creating content from scratch would seem oblivious, but it’s not. Though the technology has not evolved to a point where it can paint opinions about politics, it sure can write blogs and create news to attract online visitors.

Industry leader such as Forbes, BBC, CNN and New York Times have shown an inclination towards using AI in their daily feed of news articles. Tools such as Wordsmith, Articoolo, and Quill have infiltrated the writer’s market in turn saving agencies time and money.

AI is not only able to just create content but also curate it. Depending upon previous visits, search patterns and interests, personalized content is presented to readers so they can edit and reshare. No one does it better than Contentstudio, where your daily feed of articles is custom tailored to your preference.

Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns are also getting a flavor of AI. New and improved algorithms are able to determine the feasible time and days to contact potential business. This improves the effectiveness of your campaign and enhances ROI. The traditional way of email marketing, A/B testing is not only time consuming but also prone to error.

Services such as Persado, Pharsee, and Boomtrain have documented proof that integrating machine learning into their products has boosted results compared to when they were done by humans.

Digital Advertising

If any field has been more influenced by AI, it’s digital marketing. Analyzing visitor’s interest, demographics, and other aspects, these systems are able to display specific ads. This sparks a will to be intrigued and possible conversion. Mega advertising platforms such as Google Adwords and Facebook ads have dominated the industry for years.

Everything from advertising budget, ad copy, and cost per conversion is analyzed and readjusted to increase ROI.

According to Bloomberg:

“Google’s decision to deploy AI into search shows that companies are starting to entrust their most valuable businesses to systems controlled in part by machine intelligence. Facebook Inc. uses AI techniques to filter the newsfeed that comprises the personalized homepage of the social network and Microsoft Corp. is using artificial intelligence to increase the capabilities of its Bing search engine. Microsoft declined to be more specific about whether it’s using a similar approach to Google.”

Better ROI

All the above-discussed factors contribute to one greater cause, return on investment. AI has proven records for better image recognition that can be used for online transactions, content creation/ curation for attracting visitors, personalized UX for conversion funnel, voice search for better results, so on so forth.

All these factors contribute to one common cause, higher revenue. AI increases the productivity of each process by applying intelligent solutions. This combination increases the ROI of the business. Stakeholders have a better view of what parameters need to be tweaked to extract maximum profit. Hence the role of Artificial Intelligence in Business Development can no longer be overlooked.