Artificial Intelligence: The Main Challenge is Finding Value for Business
Explore AI's impact on business: its evolution, applications, and value in the digital era. A must-read for entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts.
It seems like it was just yesterday when everything started to advance very rapidly, and the truth is, it indeed moves at a breakneck pace. ChatGPT has been with us for over a year now, and although Artificial Intelligence is not something that emerged just a year ago — it has been around for a few decades — it seems that OpenAI’s famous Chat has done nothing but motivate many companies to seriously consider AI as a true revolution.
I often encounter the same problem: not knowing what use cases AI has within a business. And it seems that this occurs not only in my company but in many others. The tech sector has much to teach us in this respect, and I understand the difficulty, as the progress and technological advancement of AI move at a pace that makes it impossible to keep up with all its innovations. Therefore, it’s important to start with the basics and, based on that, develop a guide to identify those use cases.
What is artificial intelligence?
As I mentioned earlier, the concept of artificial intelligence is not new, it has been with us for quite a few years. Since the beginning of World War II, Alan Turing, hailed as the theoretical father of computer science and artificial intelligence, was theoretically the first to consider the possibility of machines reasoning like humans, and laid the groundwork for later development in computer science and artificial intelligence. But let me get straight to the point. The definition of artificial intelligence is nothing more than the simulation of human intelligence by machines, programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The term also includes skills associated with the human mind, such as learning, problem-solving, and reasoning. Therefore, in a sufficiently advanced state within each of these skills, it is assumed that AI should have the ability to supplement or complement a human being in these abilities.
Now that we have a clearer vision of what artificial intelligence is, let’s delve deeper into the concept of what AI can do for us. Here arises something curious and fascinating: we are at the point where the processing capacity of Artificial Intelligence is clearly superior to that of any average human, and the limitations are more in the supervision or need for input by a human for AI to execute its function. It’s true that there are some projects where AIs manage themselves, like AutoGPT, but this is still in a very early phase as of the date of publication of this article. In any case, seeing the pace at which it advances, I wouldn’t be surprised if this changes tomorrow.
Generative Artificial Intelligence
Basically, it’s the type of artificial intelligence designed and focused on creating and “generating” new content. This can be of any type: text, images, audio, video, etc. Unlike more “traditional” AI models focused on analyzing or interpreting data, generative AI can generate completely new results, and these are strongly based on probabilistic distribution on the training data received, but their generation is completely new.
Use Cases:
You’ve probably heard many people say that AI is going to take our jobs, etc. I agree that it will, sooner rather than later, specially if your job has little creative or value contribution, then surely an AI can do it. I don’t say better, but probably for less money, working 24/7, and without unionizing. But you’ll say, “Hey, Juan, but with generative AI the creative part is also covered,” and you’d also be right. However, as it is still in a very early adoption phase, and if we assume adoption times similar to digitalization (I still see companies immersed in digital transformation in 2024), there’s still a while to go. The problem will not be the AI, but us who adapt slowly.
And there’s the trick: if you want to be in a dominant position, the secret is to adapt to the new reality as soon as possible. Because before AI leaves you jobless, someone who knows how to use it will. Starting to make efficient use of AI is key, as knowing how to use it will allow you to do more, in less time and better. They are like superpowers, and this will allow you to stand out within the competition as a company, and also at an individual level among your coworkers. I like to use an example from the movie Minority Report, where a young Tom Cruise managed hundreds of advanced tasks from the same terminal. Therefore, the concept of a one-man band, who knows a little about everything and relies on AI for more specialized concepts, will spread.
I usually classify the use cases of Artificial Intelligence into four key concepts:
- Productivity: Do more, better, and in less time. This includes optimization, data analysis, correction, summarization, classification, translation, expanding knowledge, etc.
- Creativity: Create text, images, videos, music, code, etc.
- Automation: Automatically execute processes that have little or no value contribution.
- Simulation: Create synthetic environments to simulate real ones and predict possible outcomes based on hundreds of billions of accelerated interactions (something we cannot do in real life).
Ideally, and for accessibility, it’s best to start with efficiency cases. Start with yourself, learning how to use AI and understanding how to interact with it to achieve that necessary efficiency. The key is to improve your skills in prompt engineering, which is just that: knowing how to interact with AI. It’s true that AI is getting better at understanding vague or not sufficiently detailed requests, but being good at prompt engineering still makes these requests even more precise. Companies that understand this and offer quality training to their employees to improve their skills in using AI will basically be arming themselves with employees with superpowers, turning them into superheroes with all the benefits this implies.
The next step is the creative use of AI, in generating original content, especially content that entertains and adds value. Never before has the entry barrier to more specialized content been so low, or almost non-existent. A clear case is programming, which has allowed for the acceleration of development processes, but has also enabled people with more limited knowledge to create software, turning natural language into the best programming language. The same happens with music or images, and I imagine that at some point the label “Human made” will be considered a premium or luxury product.
The other two concepts currently have a much more pronounced entry barrier, but in any case, I would not discard them, especially in the business environment. I would review all the processes that are currently performed manually and that can be performed by AI today, such as flight or hotel reservations, travel expense management, trainings, onboardings, note-taking, etc. This would also include logistic optimization and production chain optimization, or energy use optimization. In the case of simulation, if you have the appropriate environment covering all the necessary parameters, you could predict how a product would behave much before even launching it to the market.
Conclusion:
I myself am overwhelmed with the advance of AI, and it’s impossible for me to keep up, but this doesn’t prevent me from being aware of a reality: we are living through one of the biggest revolutions in the history of humanity, where progress is enormous. We will see many advances in the coming years not only in the business environment, but also in the fields of science and health, which makes me especially excited. My recommendation is simple: analyze current individual processes and assess which of these AI can do today. Test them or check if the results are the same as those you would offer; in this case, it would already be a clear use case. But imagine they are better; then there would be no doubt.
Note: This content was written by a human and corrected by my beloved ChatGPT. Or did you think my English was that good? 😉
Note 2: Same for the images 🙂