14 Smart Ways Businesses Can Leverage AI For Growth And Efficiency

Artificial intelligence may not be a fringe technology anymore, but that doesn’t mean businesses are using it to its full potential. From automating repetitive processes to forecasting to better serving customers and clients, companies can realize significant productivity gains and cost savings from the smart application of AI. 

Even though AI’s potential applications are widespread, businesses would be wise to take focused, careful steps in applying the technology to best meet their unique needs. Below, 14 industry experts from Forbes Technology Council share smart ways leaders can introduce AI into their businesses right now.

1. Automate Manual Processes

We use AI to automate manual processes—especially when it comes to data entry. We have had success in applying AI in automating back-office tasks through optical character recognition, data capture, document indexing, robotic process automation and other use cases. It’s not nearly as high profile as AI’s uses in healthcare or self-driving cars, but for us, it has been a real ROI deliverer. - Matt Berseth, NLP Logix

2. Identify Patterns

Innovative public sector organizations are using AI to help make predictions that advance their mission. AI helps you find patterns in existing data and then make predictions from new data. Nonprofits can predict which individuals will donate to their cause, hospitals can predict health issues in patients and government agencies can predict breakdowns in equipment before they happen. - Dave Levy, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

3. Return To The Office Safely

One strategic use of AI would be to enable employees to return to the office safely. We are using AI to minimize risks for employees whose work requires them to be in the office. We monitor the daily risk profile and risk prediction on a rolling seven-, 14- and 21-day basis, which is helping us improve staff deployment planning. In the event of an infection, the system can be used for contact tracing within 20 to 30 minutes. - Abhijit Mazumder, Tata Consultancy Services

4. Monitor Workplace Safety

AI should be used as much as possible because it reduces the potential for damage from poor execution and can prevent mistakes. Businesses can use AI to monitor safety in manufacturing facilities or warehouses. Humans can do it as well, but they get tired. AI calls out issues with much higher accuracy and gives more predictable results—it can save lives. - Andrey Ustyugov, Planner 5D

5. Create An Easily Navigable Knowledge Base

Integrate a smart support desk driven by AI. Growing your knowledge base over time can increase friction when someone is searching for the right piece of documentation. Combining support software with an AI bot makes the customer service process easy, increasing satisfaction and decreasing the load on your support staff. - Mario Peshev, DevriX

6. Optimize Supply Chains

Businesses need to start using AI to optimize their supply chains. AI in the form of machine learning predicts supply and demand, making greater workflow automation possible. For an already taxed workforce, AI helps supply chain leaders wrap their arms around mountains of data from a multitude of sources in real time to keep them informed, engaged and better able to make the best decisions. - Doug Lawson, ThinkIQ

7. Forecast Demand

Digitally savvy enterprises are utilizing applied artificial intelligence to enable significant efficiency improvements and growth, stepping up to a new level of data connectivity. For example, going deeper into PepsiCo’s supply chain allowed us to focus on specific outcomes such as demand forecasting, pricing and promotion. These are areas every business can benefit from. - David Tuck, Kin + Carta

8. Explore Customer Behavior

AI is a powerful tool, hands down. My recommendation would be to apply it to analyzing customers’ behavior. Businesses can be successful when customers are happy with the experience they pay for. What part of the process takes the longest for customers who are looking to accomplish certain goals? What features don’t they use at all, and why is that? Note that this may sound like spying, so make sure you use this data to put your customers first. - Nadya Knysh, a1qa

9. Personalize Customer Experiences

AI will play a major role in the hyper-personalization age, going beyond mere recommendations to the manufacture of unique products. AI will combine itself with other transformative tech—such as Internet of Things devices, the cloud and augmented reality—to provide a quasi-unique experience. Any business investing in hyper-personalized manufacturing today will certainly see their investments pay off sooner rather than later. - Nacho De Marco, BairesDev

10. Support Customer Service Teams

Smart business leaders focus their AI investments on supercharging customer experiences. But they should not simply replace support employees with a poorly tuned AI system; they should use AI to fill in gaps and augment the humans who are vital to positive customer experiences. AI tools such as chatbots are a smart way to supercharge critical customer experiences while enabling employees to be more efficient. - Andrea Giacomini, Mitto

11. Provide Self-Service Options

We’ve seen our customers adopt many different AI use cases. For example, some make use of AI to expand their customer self-service options through technology such as chatbots, which can help their customers with repetitive, straightforward activities such as appointment scheduling or frequently asked questions. This allows employees to dedicate their time to customers who need more support. - Cindy Jaudon, IFS

12. Boost Cyber Defenses

AI can play a big part in an organization’s cyber defense posture. Cybersecurity tools leverage AI to better identify and protect data from threats. Combining human and artificial cyber intelligence plans today prepares us for the risks we’ll face tomorrow. - Noah Boudreaux, VENYU

13. Detect Anomalies

Businesses typically see AI as a fundamental enabler of better relationships with their customers through personalized services as well as an essential tool for threat detection in cybersecurity domains. But there is another helpful, underexplored angle to AI: Anomaly detection through machine learning can help uncover process inefficiencies and anticipate failures, thus improving sustainability. - Simone Steel, Nationwide Building Society

14. Monitor Workstream Statuses

Start with using AI internally to understand your business. Before rushing to apply AI or ML, we need to standardize the data used to run the business. Status reporting for every workstream that has been funded should be automated, with no data manipulation—yet I’ve seen companies spend over $100 million a year to do it manually. Applying new technologies without the basic infrastructure won’t lead to success. 

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/09/27/14-smart-ways-businesses-can-leverage-ai-for-growth-and-efficiency/?sh=172b9391594e