New services and products operating with AI | AI in business #24

AI already enhances the efficiency of operating many various machines from automatic lawnmowers, wind turbines, to managing promotional messages appearing in your email inbox just when you want to unsubscribe from a slightly too expensive service. What other new and surprising applications does ubiquitous AI have? Read on to find out about new services and products operating with AI!

New services and products operating with AI – table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. New services using AI
3. New products operating with AI
4. New services and products operating with AI – Summary

Introduction

Artificial intelligence underpins the performance of the majority of new services and products offered on the market. Both as end users and business customers, we are often not even aware of how much our satisfaction from dealing with a particular company depends on the performance of AI. It is like a shadow, invisibly supporting many solutions. In chatbots greeting us on almost every website or social media audience satisfaction analysis , personalized prompts appear when you create an email message as well as constantly improving translators which interpret voice conversation in real-time, to name a few.

New services using AI

A lot of services applying AI are highly complex by combining various aspects of its capabilities. Amazon’s shopping services or the operation of state-of-the-art call centers, provide excellent examples of the interacting systems that make up a customized personalized service.

Predictive shopping

The artificial intelligence of one of the world’s most valuable brands, Amazon, works by predicting customer intent (intent reading). Predictive shopping technology is based on:

• previous purchasing choices
• analysis of search terms
• time spent on individual product pages
• opening and performing actions suggested by marketing materials offered by the portal

Based on these factors Amazon has patented a system that recognizes goods regularly ordered by a customer and ships them from the warehouse before their order (anticipatory shipping). In other words, it sends customers products they haven’t even had time to think about buying yet. This enables the shipment to wait in the supplier’s van and reach the customer even one hour after finalizing the purchase.

The next step in the future of predictive shopping is to automate not only the packaging and delivery of ordered goods but also the placing of orders. In other words, AI will crank out purchases for people who regularly order through Amazon. They would receive their next shipment even if they forgot to order it.

Amazon customers in the United States can even receive a package with items they haven’t bought yet but have simply become interested in. They get the option of either returning it for free or receiving a discount if they are not completely satisfied with the product delivered to their home.

Integrated call centers

Until recently, the operation of call centers was associated with endless waiting for a connection. Once you established a conversation with a consultant, you had to confirm personal information one by one, provide secret codes for identification, and then explain the problem, often to several people in succession.

One of the service sectors thriving with the help of AI is precisely voice-based customer service. With the combination of cutting-edge natural language processing technologies, voicebots together with analytical tools, most of the typical problems solved by call centers become automated. This primarily benefits industries related to:

• Servicing equipment at the customer’s home – automating requests and verifying customer entitlements, as well as assigning tasks and organizing the calendar of service technician visits
• Insurance sector – from buying insurance to making claims through voicebot conversation
• Banking – verification of customer identity through advanced voice recognition methods and the ability to perform almost all banking activities, including AI-assisted credit decisions

Interestingly, artificial intelligence also provides real-time support for consultants in call centers talking to customers whose problems voicebots have failed to handle. Cresta, a platform listed among the “unicorns” of 2022, i.e. private startups that have earned more than $1 billion, serves this purpose. Cresta provides consultants with an analysis of customer emotions based on speech recognition. As a result, it helps match the tone of speech and improves the efficiency of problem-solving from 50 to even 100%.

The integration of call center operations with business operations is possible thanks to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which provide a seamless flow of data between different systems supporting business operations. Among the solutions enabling integration of the entire customer, the service area is another unicorn – Invoca. This tool combines data collection, process automation and conversation analysis. It enables customers to switch seamlessly between digital tools providing assistance and talking to a consultant.

New products operating with AI

In addition to the strictly digital domain, artificial intelligence optimizes the performance of devices belonging to the Internet of Things (IoT) domain. It includes solutions that operate in the physical world to optimize the performance of everyday equipment using AI. These include, for example, smart home components. From small household appliances, such as an iron that adjusts the amount of steam to the type of material, to more complex applications such as:

• heating controllers
• optimizing the performance of solar panels
• temporary activation of devices that consume a large amount of energy
• shading roller shutter controllers
• garden irrigation controls

Artificial intelligence has at least two applications here. On the one hand, it helps select the optimal way for a particular device to operate. For example, by measuring humidity, and temperature together with the degree of sunshine, it can choose the right time and intensity for watering the garden.

What’s more, AI enables us to create general home management systems, giving access to all the smart devices installed in the house through a single control panel.

Both applications have huge business potential. More and more devices are doing our routine chores by data to analyze our habits instead. That’s why there is an ever-increasing demand for optimized home appliances that “work on their own,” and even let the manufacturer know when they need service.

When we add personal devices like wearable technologies or equipment that enables health monitoring and habit analysis, especially in the elderly, a fantastic field for innovation opens up. It also includes building data-driven knowledge for technology development purposes as well as the insurance industry, to name a few.

New services and products operating with AI – Summary

New services and products operating with AI are collecting and analyzing data to improve customer satisfaction, as well as to gradually increase their performance. The digital and analog layers of reality are interpenetrating more and more deeply, so sensors and software enhancements are not surprising even in simple household appliances. But what continues to impress the most is the implementation of artificial intelligence in systems that organize entire areas of daily life – shopping, public transportation, handling personal finances, or managing home appliances – and that one of the key priorities in designing AI-supported devices is to make life easier so that technical support becomes as invisible as possible.

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