What is all this buzz about AI–what is it and how does it pertain to me?
Answer: The short answer is that AI is used in a numerous ways–from self-driving cars to streamlining your online shopping experience.
The long answer is much more complex. AI is always being tweaked but will possibly never be perfected. For example, if I’m on a website that sells cutlery sets and they don’t quite have the filters in place to narrow down my preference, what if, as I’m scrolling down, I scroll more slowly when I see an item I like. As I continue to scroll, the site’s AI engine (as how I will refer to it!) kicks in and tells the database to query and produce more like items. This may be through a series of SKUs, brand names, or possibly–even another AI source with which to interface. The end result would produce better results related to the items I’m considering purchasing. Right now quite frankly, the system sucks. I do ONE search for ‘best garden fertilizer’ and next thing you know I have every ad I see trying to sell me fertilizer!
Data acquisition and analytics are also a huge part of AI. The more an organization knows about their customer the better off they are. From predictive analysis of products you may be purchasing to sending coupons just at the right time, AI can help with all of that. As behaviors and patterns happen, over time the AI engine will adapt and get better at deciding when to ship your next supply of laundry detergent. Heck, Amazon’s been doing it for years. But there is so much to be improved upon.
In the IT world, we have been leveraging AI for some time. For example, many security companies are using AI to constantly monitor their customers’ IT environments. Through the continuous collection of data, algorithms are created and modified in real time to learn and adapt to the behavior of the intended end result. If a certain data share isn’t used very often and suddenly experiences a lot of queries, it will send an alert to someone so they can further investigate.
AI still has a lot of room to grow. The hardest part is figuring out how to write a program for something that doesn’t yet exist. We have come so far in such a short amount of time. Hopefully AI will help streamline processes moving forward in a positive way.
