How AI is Transforming Everyday Technology

Many products and services we depend on every day – whether it’s robotic automation of simple physical work, or smart security cameras we have at home – would be impossible without AI. Most of the time it remains invisible in the background, running on our computers and our phones, simplifying life and making it safer.

But how, and what does it actually mean for work, society and our future? The truth is that we cannot know what will happen because the answer is so unpredictable, such that we need to try things and see what works best.

AI in Transportation

Stakeholders in the transportation industry need to learn about how AI operates and be prepared to adopt it, which will improve safety outcomes and operations, while reducing costs to agencies and taxpayers.

Other Generative AI applications include predicting when maintenance will be required to avoid overuse and downtime, which will enhance the efficiency of networks of vehicles and infrastructure, cutting costs. Generative AI can also assist with optimising the logistics and supply chain, which will bring budget benefits to transport operators and make them more competitive.

Intelligent algorithms could be used to avoid traffic jams by detecting and predicting patterns of demand, sparing drivers time and money. And ticketing for public transit could be automated, so that some costly and sometimes contentious jobs as conductors would no longer have to exist.

AI in the Workplace

While AI software programmes might not be able to ever replace the human element of creativity itself, they can certainly help mankind arrive at creative solutions more speedily. For businesses, AI programmes can swiftly process and sift through large volumes of data in order to gauge potential ramifications many layers deep, and thus vastly help to expedite the ordinary decision-making process.

Even in a rosier scenario in which it merely supplements the work of professionals, we might look forward to seeing AI’s destruction of routine white-collar employment. Anything from telemarketing and entry-level accounting to paralegal work is vulnerable, but jobs in which workers analyse or produce something not already existing are safe – for now.

While near-term focus on costs savings and increases in productivity, properly implemented workplace AI might be more easily leveraged to change organisational culture as well.

AI in Manufacturing

Manufacturing processes are also being shaped by AI. Automation of processes enables production with minimal human intervention, augmentation helps workers execute tasks, and following processes more precisely ensures better compliance and quality control. For example, AI-driven anomaly detection allows for finer product control than human inspectors. For example, an AI software that monitors cardiac rhythms can recognize life-threatening pattern changes. As AI becomes more intelligent, it can help to make products of greater consistency, thereby giving manufacturers an edge in today’s highly competitive environment.

Apply AI to sensor and equipment data, and manufacturers can in real time ensure that the factory is running at peak efficiency, anticipating issues before they emerge and providing mediation in an attempt to minimise downtime.

Companies can also be more proactive to avoid supply-chain delays by leveraging predictive analysis that takes advantage of AI and brings weather and traffic conditions into real time. This enables them to plan their roadies more accurately and determine the most efficient last mile delivery routes.

AI in Finance

AI allows financial organisations to improve processes and customer experience by analysing customer feedback to predict churn and employing proactive retention strategies and targeted interventions.

Fraud can also be caught using this information by looking at these patterns of buying by individuals and entities to reduce the risk of penalties and expose assets. The same solutions that reduce regulatory risk also automate the reporting process so that a company cannot overlook a response. This reduces compliance costs and helps in avoiding multi-million-dollar penalties.

In the financial sector, deep changes will soon be wrought by new generative AI apps, as a growing number of financial companies begin to develop and deploy them. In finance, however, data security concerns and compliance requirements need constant balancing with innovation.

AI in Healthcare

Some health care AI applications will reduce diagnosis and treatment times through predictive models, and individualise prescriptions and treatment protocols to aid medicine. Likewise, they will assist in designing new products and constituents and automate many routine, but complex tasks that leave too much room for human error. Many of these tasks are often dangerous and ergonomically challenging, and introducing AI service robots to workplaces can completely eliminate the need for perilous manual labour.

The two biggest obstacles to uptake of healthcare AI are changing culture within organisations, and considerations of safety, but agreed criteria on reimbursing for this could allow these solutions to scale affordably across Europe and reassure about the technology. Solutions that remove or reduce administrative tasks – which for many physicians account for up to 70 per cent of their work – would be especially helpful.

AI in Entertainment

Artificial intelligence is rapidly making the business of entertainment faster, easier and more varied. Trailer AI, for example, uses machine learning to produce precise cut-to-cut personalised movie adverts. Persado used the technology to write witty promotional copy for marketing campaigns.

Some worry that the tool is designed to take their jobs, while other occupational workers feel that the technology will complement their work and let them focus on more strategic problems.

AI in Smart Homes

Smart home devices are being transformed by AI in order to enable automated and secure home devices and control systems that enhance security, automate tasks and optimise energy management for cost reductions to the family unit.

New forms of domotics can incorporate AI skills, like voice assistants to screen the cal handicap calls and even identify suspect ones; scheduling and undertaking housework and maintenance on behalf of the inhabitant; even undertaking maintenance on their own initiative.

Information gathered by the devices might raise privacy issues, but this can be mitigated by granting greater transparency and empowerment to users.

AI in Education

At Stanford’s AI+Education Summit this summer, many were quick to see it as an education-changing force, but they also called for a reckoning with its dangers.

AI might save teachers time on administrative work so they can spend more time with students; it might give students some highly motivating feedback (we know that online detailed, textual feedback is slow and painful but is much more motivating than short, snappy comments; human feedback inevitably has stigma, classification, and graded form that can be demotivating); it might rejuvenate teachers’ expertise by teaching itself what works and what practices to highlight and suggest, and new materials to try.