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Austin BlackMar 22, 20217 min read

How Is AI Changing the Competitive Intelligence Landscape?

Technology is rapidly changing society, and the world is becoming heavily influenced by the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In many cases, machines are already outperforming humans, and AI can now translate languages, diagnose illnesses, mimic human speech, generate competitive intelligence, and even beat humans at games. The evolution of machine learning and artificial intelligence is advancing much more quickly than many thought possible. It isn't easy to imagine the massive impact AI will have on the world we live in 50 years from now.

It’s undeniable that AI is transforming the workplace and many of the products and services that result from dozens of industries. While AI solves a myriad of problems throughout society, these advancements do not come without some concerns.

Let’s explore the impact of AI on society by looking at how major industries are affected and the pros and cons of AI implementation. Additionally, we’ll explore how Wide Narrow leverages AI to produce competitive intelligence and how you can embrace the intelligent future.

The Impact of AI on Society

Some sectors are just now exploring how AI can improve their operations, and many are far along already. Tech giants like Google, Apple, and Amazon spend billions to meet the demand of their customers' quest for intelligently advanced products and services. Many of us are well-acquainted with Alexa, Siri, and Cortana and rely on their intelligence for everyday tasks like checking the weather, updating an online calendar, or asking for directions. Aside from making our daily lives a little easier, artificial intelligence is making waves throughout society, especially when it comes to productivity.

Machine Learning in the Workplace

The future of AI in the workplace is inevitable. Venture capitalist and AI expert Dr. Kai-Fu Lee estimates that robots performing automated tasks will replace 40% of jobs worldwide within 10-15 years. He predicts that no industry will be untouched by machine learning, but that the transportation industry will likely see the most significant and most immediate impact.

Whether an industry is newly exploring AI, or if it has been on the cutting edge of technological advancement, society as a whole has a long way to go. However, AI’s presence in our daily lives is perhaps more common than the average person might consider. Let’s explore:

    • Manufacturing: The manufacturing industry is already booming with AI technology, and may be one area where AI-powered robots can seamlessly replace humans. Right now, these robots work alongside humans to perform tasks related to assembly, and moving and stacking large or bulky materials. Aside from improving work safety conditions for humans, these non-human employees improve efficiencies and minimize labor costs. Large-scale production companies like GE, Bosch, Intel, Microsoft, and Siemens use the power of AI within their manufacturing operations.
    • Education: Textbooks are being digitized with the help of AI, allowing for a wider distribution of valuable learning materials at an affordable cost. Virtual tutoring and online universities give students the ability to work at their own pace and have customized learning experiences. Virtual tutors can assist the human instructors, and even gauge students’ emotions by analyzing facial cues. This helps the instructors know how to improve the learning experience or offer extra assistance to anyone who might be struggling.
    • Media: AI powers language generation algorithms to compile and convert large quantities of data into readable articles and news stories. This condensed information is distributed automatically, increasing the amount of available content to nearly four times more than in recent years.
    • Healthcare: AI implementation saves time and money across all industries. While this is a win for any organization, it is particularly beneficial in healthcare, where patient care is often time-sensitive. AI is relatively new to the healthcare industry, but is already quickly and accurately diagnosing disease and speeding up the research and discovery of groundbreaking drugs. Virtual nurses can monitor patients and promptly develop customized treatment plans. When it comes to neurological conditions, AI's capabilities are nothing short of miraculous. 

“If I’m in the neurology ICU on a Monday, and I see someone who has suddenly lost the ability to move or to speak, we want to restore that ability to communicate by Tuesday,” said Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery at MGH, in an article for Health IT Analytics. This is done by using AI to decode neural activity and using communication tech that allows the person to communicate via tablet or phone.

    • Customer Service: Chatbots, call centers, rewards programs, and customized streaming suggestions are powered by AI. Big data can predict desire, which is a powerful tool in sales, marketing, and customer service.

Striking a Balance: When Artificial Intelligence Meets Brain Intelligence

While artificial intelligence can substantially increase efficiencies and improve output altogether in the workplace, there is a limit. We will always need human beings for tasks that require deep empathy, judgment, creativity, and compassion. When non-humans are employed to do repetitive and potentially dangerous types of work, the real people can focus on performing deeper analysis and correlating those insights to business impact. These individuals can also spend time coordinating internal human capital to take action. By not worrying about driving to work (hello, computerized travel options), or doing menial, unengaging tasks, people might find a new appreciation for their work, and overall workplace happiness will increase. Yet, we must still consider how workforce changes and the uncertainty surrounding job security are real and legitimate challenges.

AI will transform society in all aspects of our lives - economically, politically, and legally to name a few. What if AI doesn't do the job it was designed to do, or someone is unintentionally injured? Who is at fault? Data power the algorithms that create artificial intelligence. All of that information gathering might pose a threat to personal privacy.

Among the uncertainty surrounding such an enormous change is the bothersome concern machines may someday evolve to become super-intelligent and take control of many of our operating systems. The intention behind AI is to improve our society in measurable ways, and we have to consider that while this is the chief goal, there may be growing pains along the way.

How Does Wide Narrow Leverage AI?

There is a delicate balance between artificial intelligence and brain intelligence. AI is exceptional at handling repetitive tasks and performing actions based on pre-defined models. Human beings excel at jobs that require experience and putting context to a problem. The Wide Narrow platform works to marry those strengths by providing tools for you to put context to the analysis while allowing the AI to perform tasks that save you time and provide you with the tools to perform more in-depth analysis based on your experience within your organization. Here are some different use-cases of where AI is making an impact inside of the Wide Narrow platform.

Reducing Information Noise

We leverage AI technology to learn what content you find most interesting. We can then apply targeted filters to help filter out irrelevant information noise. But, we deploy AI in such a way to avoid an excessive amount of bias. Wide Narrow gives you the control to identify the most relevant information, but also outliers (things that are not within your trained AI filtering model) so that you are aware of potentially important pieces of information that may not be in your direct area of interest. However, this data may have a material impact on your organization.

Categorizing Content

Our AI can learn your information tagging patterns to help you expedite the information categorization process. This improves across time and provides massive time savings in content categorization in the long run.

Save Time With Summarization

Wide Narrow leverages AI summarization technology to help summarize long pieces of content into easily digestible information. This technology allows you to rapidly summarize content so you can spend more time putting that information into the context of how it impacts your business. We make sure to provide you with the full text of the content so you can save time, but dig deeper.

Preparing for the Intelligent Future

When it comes to competitive intelligence, traditional search options and keyword monitoring are not enough to develop industry-leading strategies. For competitive intelligence teams, advancements in technology and digital information growth mean an even larger and more complex pool of data. Mining and filtering data has changed with machine learning technology in recent years, and now includes ways to process massive amounts of data, filter out information noise, and provide analysts with tools to produce actionable contextual analysis.

By leveraging the power of Wide Narrow's AI-powered platform, your team can save time and streamline workflow, connect your own data sources, or use our information services to get better information with less noise.  With a customized insights hub, you'll have access to dashboards, newsletters, email alerts, reports, benchmarks, and battle cards for all of your stakeholders. Reach out to schedule a demo and learn how we can help you make the most informed decisions for your business.

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