More and More Companies are Using Artificial Intelligence

Now, artificial intelligence (AI) helps employees make sure that pallets will load safely into cargo planes. It happens in some DHL shipping centers. A computer vision system captures each pallet. Then, the algorithm judges if it can be stacked with other pallets or maybe too peculiar to fit on the next flight.

DHL is one of a growing number of companies using artificial intelligence. AI helps to control an experimental robot arm that picks and sort parcels, to route deliveries, and to control robots that ferry packages around warehouses. Also, DHL is among a small minority of companies using AI. Just eleven percent of companies are using AI. DHL has reaped a significant return on investment from using AI, according to a new report.

The report came from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group. The report is the first to explore if companies are benefiting from artificial intelligence. Amid recent AI hype, its sobering finding offers a dose of realism. Also, the report provides some answers to why some companies appear to be pouring money down the drain, and others are profiting from artificial intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence

One answer would be the continual experimenting with artificial intelligence, even if the initial project did not yield a big payoff. The authors say that the most successful companies learn from the early uses of AI. They adapt their business practices based on the result. Seventy-three percent say that they see returns on their investments, among those that did that most effectively. Also, the report found that companies’ employees work closely with artificial intelligence algorithms fared better. It is because employees are learning from algorithms but also, they help to improve them.

Sam Ransbotham works at Boston College. He is a professor there. So, he said that people that get value step back and let the machine tell them what they can do differently. Ransbotham noted that there is no simple formula to see a return on investment. Nevertheless, he added that the gist is not blindly applying artificial intelligence to a business’s processes.

Research showed how machine learning algorithms could perform specific tasks with superhuman skills when fed with enough computer power and training data. Thus, artificial intelligence became a hot business buzzword. It has become more apparent that AI often needs a helping hand from humans to perform accordingly.

Many companies are using or piloting artificial intelligence in 2020. It appears to be helpful for some of them, nevertheless not for the others.