Category: AI

Computer vision pioneer Restb.ai unleashes its tech on valuations

The Valuation Product Suite is geared at modernizing the appraisal process and assisting in compliance with new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs that make it easier to get loans approved without an appraisal.

Thinking of Bringing AI Into Your Workplace? Here’s How to Do It Successfully

By Arkady Sandler
Utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) in business operations is a reliable way to boost the speed, efficiency and overall quality of work, and 81% of employees already believe that AI has improved their job performance. In fact, according to
SnapLogic, 68% are ready for their employers to deploy more AI-based tools.

The global AI market is currently worth
over $136 billion, and its value is projected to skyrocket over 13 times this number over the next seven years, which means we are only seeing the beginning of what it can do for companies. However, while AI has enormous potential and widespread acceptance by those in the workforce, it still has limitations that prevent humans from relying on it entirely.

Here are a few tips to help your organization avoid three of the most common pitfalls that arise when using AI technology in business operations.

How to successfully incorporate AI in the workplace

1. Make sure your results are unique and relevant

Remember that AI relies on the inputs it is given and the data it is trained on to produce results. Because of this, it is always possible that the results generated are too generic to be effective without further refinement.

Currently, AI has been implemented by at least 35% of businesses in their operations, according to the IBM Global AI Adoption Index, while 42% of companies say they are actively exploring AI integration. The primary applications identified by these participants include chatbots and automated email chains. Consequently, emphasizing personalization and delivering unique outcomes has become increasingly vital, as the customer experience now wields a direct influence on your brand’s long-term success.

For instance, if your marketing team uses GPT to generate text without finalizing the outputs or maintaining a focus on tailoring the message to your target audience, not only will your customers be unhappy with a generic experience, but you will be more likely to see a decline in business because your voice will no longer stand out from your competitors.

2. Beware of inaccurate, incomplete, or unintentionally biased outputs

AI’s ability to contextualize information is much more rudimentary than a trained human mind. It is also important to remember that an undertrained predictive model becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy” of deteriorating results becoming worse over time. For instance, if your own previous predictions cause the data stream to change, AI must be able to account for this, or its outputs will become increasingly less useful. This means that it is more likely to return an inaccurate, irrelevant, or incomplete result if a query is not carefully or explicitly worded.

Universal AI literacy is something the global community must embrace in order to fully realize the potential of AI, but this is especially important for businesses. Teaching employees and users the importance of high-quality data and how to navigate the blind spots artificial intelligence might have is the best way to reduce the likelihood of problems stemming from inaccurate results.

A possible instance of this would be using virtual assistants in a healthcare setting to help streamline the diagnostic process for basic urgent care needs. Imagine telling an AI diagnostic tool that you are experiencing kidney pain. Based on that input, the AI would be likely to prescribe kidney-specific treatments. However, if you were to simply complain of pain in your lower left side, it would likely recommend additional diagnostic tests to help pinpoint the source of the pain, which might not be the kidneys at all.

To help mitigate this, it’s essential to educate everyone potentially using your AI about its limitations. Understanding how to ask the best questions to get optimal, helpful answers is a skill that can be learned, and acknowledging that there may be biased or inaccurate results opens the door for critical thinking and overall improvements in how your business uses artificial intelligence.

3. Remember that AI is constantly evolving and needs upkeep

It is natural and expected for artificial intelligence systems to degrade over time. In the same way that you must upgrade company software on a schedule or purchase new office furniture periodically, your business needs to plan for regular maintenance of its AI tools.

Regular system updates help keep your AI system performing at its peak effectiveness and reduce the likelihood of poor or erroneous outputs. For example, using a prediction system to manage resources based on a particular data stream is an excellent way to boost efficiency.

However, without consistent updates and pretraining, it is possible that the system would not account for its own impact on the current data, such as mentioned earlier with an under-trained predictive model getting stuck in a cycle of deteriorating outputs. This would lead to increasingly less accurate information as the system degrades until the whole thing becomes nearly unusable.

Finally, it is important to bear in mind that, in many cases, artificial intelligence needs further training specific to an organization before it can be truly effective. Routinely examining the data it has been trained on and ensuring it’s as complete, clean, and neutral as possible will make upkeep a much simpler, more efficient task.

Your people are your best tool for better AI incorporation

Ultimately, the companies that can find the ideal balance of human and robot collaboration are the ones most likely to see success. The truth is that while artificial intelligence has grown by leaps and bounds, it is nowhere near ready to replace humans who can think creatively and provide valuable context to make AI outputs useful, relevant, and unique to your brand.

Sci-fi movies have embedded a fantasy in our minds that the goal is to have everything automated or done by completely autonomous robots. This blind spot on our part has been responsible for plenty of failed attempts at integrating AI into society. Instead, we need to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the tech and take time to build up autonomy in the right way. This is the only path we have to a future where humans, robots, and AI coexist successfully.

FAQs about incorporating AI in the workplace

What are the problems with AI in the workplace?

It can give rise to issues such as inaccurate results, dull information, outdated data, and more. It is crucial to bear in mind that a hybrid approach, combining human expertise with AI capabilities, is necessary instead of solely relying on AI.

What is an example of AI in the workplace?

AI can be utilized for minor tasks like composing emails, distributing letters, or running advertising campaigns. Additionally, AI can serve as the core concept of a business, powering devices that address market challenges through intelligent solutions.

How does AI positively impact the workplace?

Tasks that were previously time-consuming can now be completed more quickly, freeing up valuable time for individuals. Moreover, this collaboration opens new possibilities for the creation of additional job roles and the optimization of workplace organization. It’s clear that AI will have a profound impact on all business processes related to information and document management.

About the Author

Post by: Arkady Sandler

Arkady Sandler is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive with over 20 years of experience. He founded five startups, successfully exiting three of them. He is an expert in AI, product innovation, effective product management, and technology development, and can talk about the current state of AI and its future, automation and digitalization, product innovation, and robotics.

Company: Docet TI

Website:
www.docet.ai

Connect with me on
LinkedIn.

I Asked ChatGPT to Tell Me the 10 Key Steps to Starting a Business—Here’s What It Got Wrong

Can ChatGPT provide helpful advice in successfully starting a new business?

By now many people know that ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model that uses deep learning techniques to generate texts in response to questions. It can answer a wide range of questions, summarize text, and complete sentences and paragraphs. ChatGPT is widely used in applications such as content creation and chatbots to provide human-like text responses in real-time.

Can ChatGPT offer useful advice for starting a successful business?

I asked ChatGPT (by going to
chat.openail.com/chat) the following question: What are the ten key steps in successfully starting a business? Give details on each step.

Here was ChatGPT’s answer:

Here are the 10 key steps in successfully starting a business:

  1. Idea Generation: Develop a unique and profitable business idea. Conduct market research to validate the idea and identify potential customers, competitors, and market gaps.
  2. Business Plan: Create a comprehensive business plan that outlines your goals, strategies, and resources required for the business.
  3. Market Research: Conduct thorough market research to gain insight into the target market, competition, and demand for the product or service.
  4. Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with all relevant legal and regulatory requirements such as registering the business, obtaining necessary licenses and permits.
  5. Funding: Secure sufficient funding to start and grow the business, either through personal savings, loans, or investors.
  6. Operations and Logistics: Plan and set up the business operations, including supply chain management, manufacturing processes, and distribution.
  7. Marketing and Sales: Develop and execute a marketing and sales strategy to reach and acquire customers.
  8. Technology: Utilize technology effectively to automate and streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve efficiency.
  9. Talent Management: Attract and retain top talent to build and manage the business.
  10. Financial Management: Establish and maintain effective financial management practices, including bookkeeping, budgeting, and cash flow management.

These steps should be followed in a systematic and well-planned manner to increase the chances of success in starting a business. Entrepreneurs should also be flexible and adaptable, as circumstances may change and require adjustment of plans along the way.

What grade would I give to this ChatGPT answer? I’m going to give it a C+ for the following reasons:

  • The content is very generic and summary.
  • There are no links to other sources that may be helpful, unlike many of the quality articles out there on this topic.
  • Some of the advice is questionable, such as whether every business needs to prepare a comprehensive business plan.
  • Some of the advice does not apply to small or basic businesses (such as the information about supply chain management and manufacturing processes).
  • The formatting could be improved for readability.

My version of ChatGPT’s article on starting a business

If I were to edit the ChatGPT answer into an article and keep the basic format, here is how it would look:

The 10 Key Steps to Successfully Starting a Business

Starting a successful business is not easy. There are many steps to consider and potential traps for the unwary. But here are 10 key steps to follow in order to successfully start a business:

1. Business idea

Develop a unique and potentially profitable business idea. Conduct market research to validate the idea and to identify potential customers, competitors, and a sufficiently attractive market opportunity.

2. Business plan

For some businesses, it may be worthwhile to prepare a business plan that sets forth the business idea, sales and marketing strategies, financial projections and other information. For many businesses, a pdf pitch deck outlining the business will be easier and more suitable. See Don’t Waste Time on a Startup Business Plan—Do These 5 Things Instead

3. Market research

Make sure you are thoroughly researching the market opportunity and competitive products or services, and keep on top of new developments and announcements from your competitors. One way to do this is to set up a Google alert to notify you when any new information about those companies appears online. Expect that prospective investors in your company will ask questions about the market opportunity and your competitors. Any entrepreneurs who say that “we don’t have competitors” will have credibility problems.

4. Legal and liability protection

Ensure compliance with all relevant legal and regulatory requirements, such as registering the business and obtaining necessary licenses and permits. You will likely want to start the business as a corporation or an LLC to protect your personal assets from the debts and liabilities of the business. See
How to Form an LLC and How to Incorporate a Startup Business.

5. Funding

Secure adequate funding to start and operate the business, whether from personal capital, loans, government grants or investors. One of the biggest reasons startups fail is because they do not raise sufficient capital for the business. See
5 Startup Funding Options for Your Business

6. Operations

Plan and set up the business operations, including sourcing of products or materials, manufacturing processes if applicable, optimal pricing for customers, and necessary leased space.

7. Sales and marketing

Plan a cost-effective sales and marketing strategy to reach and acquire new customers. Make sure to continually monitor the different channels you use and their cost-efficacy. Consider using social media to boost your presence online.

8. Technology

Use technology effectively and efficiently to operate and market the business.

9. Employees

Attract, motivate, and retain the employees you need to start and grow the business.

10. Financials

It can be important to prepare detailed financial projections for the business, for the following reasons:

  • To determine whether the business will ultimately be profitable
  • To determine your cash “burn” before you get cash flow profitable, showing how much startup capital you will need
  • To lay out your key financial assumptions (price per product, cost of developing the product, marketing expenses, employee expenses, rent and overhead, gross margins, and much more) so that you and others can test the reasonableness of the assumptions
  • To have those projections ready and credible when investors inevitably ask for them

Financial projections will typically be for a several-year period and will include:

  • Profit and loss statement
  • Cash flow statement
  • Detailed categories of income and expenses
  • Balance sheet
  • Underlying assumptions

Of course, your financial projections will not be perfectly matched with your actual results, but your financial projections can be revised as you move through the stages of your business.

You will also want to make sure to establish and maintain effective financial management practices, including accounting, bookkeeping, budgeting, cash flow management and tax compliance.

Most of all, be adaptable in business

Paying attention to these 10 issues will increase the likelihood of success, but you should be flexible and adaptable as you grow the business.

More articles from AllBusiness.com:

Copyright © by Richard Harroch. All Rights Reserved.

Writer’s block? Break it, with computer-vision backed ListAssist: Tech Review

ListAssist is an ideal solution for real estate marketing teams tasked with cranking out original copy day after day, the creatively drained agent and the tech-savvy team that wants to further automate business tasks they find tedious.