Mediaboss Marketing

Artificial intelligence has captured everyone's imagination, but what can we expect from the technology? A recent surveyof more than 550 executives from IBM finds plenty of support from the top -- everyone wants to plunge full-force into AI to increase the speed and capabilities of their businesses. At the same time, AI is still very much in the early stages. More than half of the executives are still either experimenting or testing on a limited basis around their organizations, and one in seven is only at the planning stage.

Before enterprises begin sinking large sums of funds into AI approaches, it's important to understand where AI can have the greatest impact. In his latest book, The AI Age, Adam Riccoboni, founder of AI consulting firm Critical Future, explores the areas where AI is already making a difference, and where we stand on the AI evolutionary scale.

There are multiple areas of the business that can benefit from AI right now. Riccoboni identifies the key business areas where AI can be applied to enhance or increase capabilities:

Supply Chain Management

(AI's potential in the supply chain is explored more deeply in this recent post.)

Sales

Marketing

Operations

IT

Human Resources:

Finance

But AI means much more than simply boosting intelligence within narrow bands of business functions. Ultimately, it means new ways of doing business. The AI revolution will move through four stages, and we are just moving into the second stage, Riccoboni states. Here's what to expect as the AI revolution unfolds:

Finally, Riccoboni provides some career guidance for professionals seeking to build careers in the AI age. While many opportunities are arising as a result of the growth of AI -- AI systems development and data science, for example, Riccoboni advises professionals to focus on being generalists, not specialists, to prepare for this new world. "Human creativity is an area of comparative advantage over AI because of its generality. Empathy is a narrow skill, so AI can be trained to do it. But when empathy means being able to connect the dots across domains, machines cannot master this... Instead of learning narrow technical skills, we need versatile, cross-domain, generalist skills."

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7 business areas ripe for an artificial intelligence boost ...