Now that the hype has settled the conversation has shifted. I'm frequently talking to business leaders, once excited about the possibilities of AI, now expressing frustration and re-evaluating their position. Views range from indifference to mild enthusiasm. The tone has become much more 'take-it-or-leave-it'. The existential threat debate - in industry at least - is left to the journalists and academics. But the slow rate of closing out the opportunities is causing frustration.
It's not so much a problem with AI, but how it is being targetted and used
One factor that I've seen first-hand is the tendency for IT departments and data science teams to over-engineer their response to business users' requests for AI-based solutions, leaning into the need for creating data lakes and expensive training of custom models, rather than harness the power of ready-made AI tools and going for the 'low-hanging fruit'. So despite the apparent support and investment, business users are being put off by the solution complexity and high costs involved in these complex approaches.
AI product makers have also been over-promoting human conversation realism - which isn't much help to business issues. It's great for the consumer market and trends such using AI for self-help and therapy, which have recently been topping usage surveys and polls. For business, these use-cases are limited and high-risk.
What is being overlooked is the power of the models to reason and make simple business decisions, such as "who should this email be directed to?", "which business process do I need to initiate to deal with this request", "when is this contract up for renewal?". There's a lot to be gained from employing these models to do mundane stuff based on their existing knowledge and their ability to determine context. The savings may be more modest, but so are the costs.
At Wisereach we've had the opportunity to experiment and discover - on behalf of our clients and through personal curiosity. We've explored many tools and a multitude of approaches to create exciting wins. We've gathered rich learnings on how to build effective and low-cost AI-based solutions and our enthusiasm and optimism remains high!
If you'd like a fresh pair of expert eyes to assess your AI aspirations and get things moving with some straight-forward solutions, or if you'd like help in establishing a more experimental approach in your business then get in touch. We'd also love to hear from you if you've have an alternative view to share! Contact us now for an informal chat.