TECHNOLOGY
an army of service bots across different areas of their business .”
Why aren ’ t all businesses implementing AI ? Recently , software giant Red Hat commissioned Vanson Bourne to survey IT decision-makers on the adoption of technologies like AI . Respondents expected to increase technology investment by 25 % from 2017-18 . However , only 24 % stated they currently implement AI , with an additional 30 % planning to implement the tech in 2018 . What threats , real or perceived , have stopped businesses already adopting AI in a flash ?
First , McGloin mentions fear of AI replacing jobs . “ This was the same argument with computers in the 1980s , but you ’ re always going to need human involvement . For example , customer complaints can ’ t be handled by bots as they can ’ t empathise . With certain transactions , people will always want to talk to someone , especially those to do with money . What will happen is we ’ ll provide better service , automate mundane tasks , and take the repetition out for folks .”
He also argues that most businesses are already using AI even if they haven ’ t made a disruptive song and dance about it . “ Even things like preference selection on websites , there ’ s AI technology behind it . I think there ’ s this fear : ‘ I don ’ t have a data scientist , it ’ s hard to get these people , it ’ s too expensive for my budget , I can do without it …’ You ’ ve got the issue of barriers like skills , availability , costs and so on that are stopping people from trying it out . The onus will be on application providers and vendors like ourselves to make it easy : we ’ ll build a solution that has
30 April 2018