Many believe artificial intelligence is the future. It seems new breakthroughs are made every day, and an AI-dominated business world is inevitable. Entrepreneurs can benefit from AI tremendously, but before adapting it, some considerations should be made.
Understand the Problem
You must understand the problem at hand to enable better solutions. Some problems are currently not solvable with AI. With customer service, most people prefer speaking to a human representative. Voice analysis isn’t foolproof either yet.
Is the Market Ready?
There are many considerations you need to make. The “datafication” of society is accelerating. Our devices constantly track people in our society; for AI, it’s important to determine if the infrastructure is in place to collect the data. For example, if you’re using AI in agriculture, do you have the necessary fleet of drones?
Industry Stakeholders
You are in control of your firm. But what about the stakeholders? For example, your customers or suppliers might prefer the human touch and not trust AI-generated recommendations. Getting your stakeholders on board will be important. Many of them will be old-fashioned and slow to adapt innovative techniques. You will need to convince them that this is the industry's future—get them to see the potential benefits, and they will give it a try.
Regulatory
Some industries are regulated more than others. Things will vary based on state and country. Be sure that government regulations allow AI in the areas where your company operates.
UX and Reporting
The algorithms are very important. But be sure that the program also has great UX (user experience.) If the interface is archaic, you’ll spend a lot of resources on training. Likewise, robust reporting is a must. All those algorithms don’t mean anything if the software can’t generate good reports which you can analyze.
Manage Expectations
Beware of incorrect expectations. Many entrepreneurs are immediately going to overestimate the power of AI. They’ll think it’s some superhuman program that can do anything. But look at what’s happened with self-driving cars and medical diagnoses. While there has been important progress, there are still some limitations. The situation will improve over time, but AI is highly unlikely to generate perfect results when you start.
AI is an exciting part of the business. An entrepreneur has many things to consider.
