Embracing Artificial Intelligence

The term artificial intelligence (AI) might conjure up images of chess-playing super robots, high-tech driverless cars and smart homes with personalities. In reality, you probably interact with some form of artificial intelligence every day. From negotiating an online return via chat bot to asking your voice assistant about the weather or scrolling through social media feeds with content curated based on your interests, AI has become a nearly seamless part of our daily lives.

The true power of AI, however, is not in the technology itself, but in the willingness to tap into and embrace its possibilities.

The Evolution of AI

Although its beginnings can be traced back to the 1950s, AI adoption has only really started to ramp up in the last decade. Similar to the sudden burst of the dot-com bubble in the late 90s, the use of AI and machine learning techniques has grown exponentially in recent years, in tandem with the rapid pace of other tech innovations.

To understand the evolution of AI let’s compare it to that of photography: The advent of the first pinhole camera in the early 1800s led to black and white photography, then color photography, then digital photography, then motion pictures, and now to the dynamic, digital-first experiences we have today.

To put it into perspective, it took 200 years for innovators to replicate the simple function of the human eye through photography and now, nearly 70 years after Alan Turing and others first introduced AI to the world, we are still trying to replicate the function of the human brain. The human brain, in the order of magnitude, is more complex than a human eye. So, despite the existence of robotic vacuums and virtual assistants, AI capabilities are still in their infancy.

Defining AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning

Before you can effectively integrate AI into your business strategy, it’s important to understand the fundamental differences between AI, machine learning and deep learning.

Artificial intelligence is a broad field of study which, at its core, strives to understand, replicate and exceed human intelligence over time. Machine learning is a subset within artificial intelligence, focused on building software to learn decision patterns from data. This can be through supervised learning — where machine learning models are fed both data inputs and outputs and are taught to model a behavior. Or through unsupervised learning — where machine learning models create data outpoints by predicting patterns on their own. And deep learning is rooted in understanding how the human brain makes decisions and predictions.

How to Get Started With AI  

Building a strong AI strategy begins with four key steps:

Adopting AI Responsibly

A critical component of your AI strategy should be governance. Businesses need to be transparent about how they are using AI and, as business leaders, should expect to be held accountable. By establishing clear governance around your AI strategy, you may be able to use AI and machine learning in more strategic, impactful and, most importantly, responsible ways.

Here are three ways to think about AI governance:

1. Data governance – Do your clients know how you’re using their data? Ensure data privacy policies are clear, transparent and reflect your intentions.

2. Model governance – Do you understand the biases your models might have?  Establish a governance structure around your AI models to identify good versus bad biases.

3. Use-case governance – Do you know where you should and shouldn’t apply AI in your business? Think strategically and choose use cases that will be low risk, yet impactful.