AI Skills: A Must-Have for Tech Professionals

In the mid-eighties, Small Wonder, a sci-fi TV series entertained adult and child alike. The story revolved around an android in the form of a 10-year-old girl. Looking back, the series was indeed very amateurish and loosely structured. The point is it introduced for the first time, the machine made man to the lay person. Thirty odd years later we hear of Saudi Arabia’s decision to grant citizenship to a robot. Endowed with artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition, the robot, Sophia is designed to get smarter over time.  

The citizenship as such is of hardly any consequence; what it signifies is that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come of age. Critics have spoken at length about the absurdity of awarding citizenship and an array of rights to a robot, while Saudi ironically is yet highly restrictive about women’s rights. However, many see this as a positive move towards making the country tech savvy and progressive.

In the computing history, man and machine interfaces have only improved and enhanced over a period of time – hence both are not mutually exclusive. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said AI, mixed reality, and quantum computing will shape the world in the coming years. The crux of the matter is that the technology world will have a blend of the real and virtual. While current technology enables in us the ability to collect data, Nadella referring to AI says, what is more important is to reason over the data to create intelligence. This is most critical as a differentiator between mechanical equipment and an AI enabled robot. In the mid-fifties the term GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out) became a descriptive term for computers, primarily because the machines lacked the ability to think for themselves. Whatever output emerged was only as accurate as the information entered. Deep down, computers still are improvised calculators. Recent development in AI comes under the aegis of `machine learning’ and involves programming computers to learn from example data or past experiences and process information based on that.

So how does machine learning impact tasks and get independent of human influence (in terms of execution of task)? Let’s take an example: Automatic transmission in cars has been prevalent for quite some time and in India, they are getting popular by the day. With increasing traffic bottlenecks people are finding it more convenient to drive a car which does not require changing gears. The driver needs to navigate by keeping the steering in control. With AI, autonomous driving, a wide step ahead of automatic transmission, the technology required for a car to accelerate, turn, and brake on real time roads without human intervention is not anymore impossible or far into the future. The recognition that autonomous driving was a prediction problem solvable with machine learning meant that autonomous vehicles could start to become a reality in the marketplace years earlier than has been anticipated.

By breaking down tasks into components, we can begin to see how AI will affect the workplace. AI is usually framed in terms of machines versus humans, but gradually we see it more in terms of understanding the level of judgment necessary to pursue actions. In cases where whole decisions can be clearly defined with an algorithm (for example, image recognition and autonomous driving), we expect to see computers replace humans. This will take longer in areas where judgment cannot be easily described – where there is high level of ambiguity in arriving at decisions or solutions. In other words, where the task is not a mere process with anticipated outcome and the pros and cons fail to fall into previous experience; AI may not accomplish the same without human intervention.

Product companies are all uniformly using AI during their product launches. This has caused excitement as well as anxiety amongst the people. Will AI assist and enable humans to perform better and with ease, or will AI replace humans to the point of redundancy?

With AI moving into the cerebral workspace, it cannot be denied that it will soon take over many tasks hitherto performed by humans. Just as the advent of machines had a significant impact on how people performed physical labor and dispensed with many jobs handled by humans, AI is soon to be responsible for transitioning many of the tasks performed by humans to robot responsibilities.

In the medical field, AI can help improve diagnostics to a very high level, treatment and care will still require human attention and action. Online shopping has rendered many counter sales jobs redundant; but, at the same time courier and door delivery jobs have increased. Apart from these examples, AI is already playing a large role in the areas of music, architecture, education, manufacturing, gaming and just about any sector or industry. In the corporate world (as a quick example) AI has gotten into recruitment – a very important task in any company. Automatic process was only used before to sort resumes based on keywords. Now, many organizations like Ola or Accenture are using bots to streamline their recruitment processes.

As Artificial Intelligence systems evolve and become more and more sophisticated, job displacement is bound to happen. However, interestingly, many new jobs very different from the ones that are currently in existence will be created. Jobs that involve creativity and those that require advanced degrees and highly specialized skill sets will be available alongside the continuous technology transformation.

Why has AI caught on like wildfire amongst businesses?

JCR Licklider, considered to be one of the most important figures in computer science and general computing history had, about 60 years ago, said: The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.
The crux of AI’s power in making businesses successful is this: AI obtains value out of existing data which can enhance processes and improve products on a consistent and continuous basis. Let’s look at Coca-Cola, the global giant in non-alcoholic beverages. The company swiftly adopted the new technology to collect, create and collate data which it uses to support product development, avail benefit of AI bots and even experiment on augmented reality in its bottling plants in different regions. AI thus helps provide the much needed competitive edge that defines business success.

So, how does any organization manage innovation on the one hand, which keeps it ahead of the market and on the other, improvise and manage internal processes efficiently?
Business processes are usually transactional or knowledge driven. AI can handle complex activities which can be both transactional and knowledge-based while combining internal assets and capabilities in order to drive overall innovation. By freeing human beings from monotonous tasks, AI helps in elevating human effort to high-value work. A digital workforce, can thus reduce or replace manual effort, enhance the efficiency of systems and in the process help organizations achieve remarkable agility in this perennially changing business environment.

When ERP came into existence, companies across sectors and geographies grabbed the opportunity to automate several of their financial, sales and HR processes. AI combined with ERP learns from the data sources and creates workflows and the time taken to load data is minimal, with of course no likelihood of errors in the inserted data. With AI, organizations can optimize their entire operating framework comprising business processes and structures, software applications, and the overarching technology infrastructure.

Though AI, as mentioned earlier, is taking over jobs and freeing humans from routine limited tasks, it will actually empower humans to perform at a high capacity in handling complex roles which involve creative thinking and decision making skills. And, as is with the advent of any new technology, AI too will require highly skilled professionals to anchor, supervise and impart training of advanced AI systems. So, skilling of employees is the need of the hour if organizations want to avoid redundancy of manpower.

Abraham Lincoln has once said: Man is not the only animal who labors, but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. This improvement, the effects of Discoveries, and Inventions.
In this disruptive age, we move from invention to innovation. Kevin Kelly in his book The Inevitable says: Birds flap their wings to fly, but to make humans fly, we had to invent a different type of flying—one that did not occur in nature. Similarly, through AI, we’re going to invent many new types of thinking that don’t exist biologically and that are not like human thinking. Therefore, this intelligence does not replace human thinking but augments it. In other words, human intelligence will be enhanced to advanced levels of innovation, analysis, and creativity.

However, people and organizations who rise to this disruption will gain and those failing to cope will find AI overwhelming and disturbing.

An Advanced Programme in AI-Powered Marketing can help professionals strike that elusive  balance between intelligence and gut-thinking.

For long, smart and seasoned marketers like you have been using intuition for key decisions. Your ability to read signals amidst the big haystack of noise is impressive. So is the strength in adapting strategies to new requirements. This has set you apart from the crowd.

But what if there was something else to reconfirm what your gut says? Like data that has been picked in a real-time instance, stripped of redundant information to get you quickly to the insight that actually counts.

And that can support your key marketing decisions like, what should be the messaging of your next campaign? Whether to target a particular TG? How much to spend on a particular Ad? Why not to say ‘this’ in your messaging? Or what is a better way of saying ‘that’?

Data: Some Missing Teeth

Of course, the role of intuition cannot be sidelined no matter how much data can tell us, and how fast. Research suggests that our intuition has been developing and expanding throughout our lifetime of experiences. Every interaction is recorded in our memory. Every lesson is processed and stored in the right spot for future retrieval and application. When we subconsciously spot patterns, the body fires neuro-chemicals in both the brain and the gut. This gives us that instant feeling that something is right or wrong. Most of the time, the hunch is spot-on.

But again, decisions based purely on gut or intuition can be risky, especially when there are huge marketing budgets and a lot of brand equity at stake. This is where AI can help you. AI and Machine Learning can validate your intuition and open up fresh opportunities that are not visible on the immediate horizon. That is the power that unleashes like a genie, when data and gut come together beautifully through AI.

When coupled with AI, your astute skills and experience can help you “radically rethink” campaigns and assess customer needs far more accurately.

Marketing with AI: The Sharp Cut

Truth be told, marketers can’t win markets without mastering data, analytics, and automation. After all, this is the age where we are overwhelmed with the constant deluge of data and on top of that, the versatility of data. Data is raw and processed, cold-warm-and-hot, structured, and unstructured– there is so much to deal with. Plus, it is being generated every second at every corner, on every device.

An Advanced Programme in AI-Powered Marketing is helping marketing professionals to revolutionize their marketing efforts to thrive in this data-glutted economy.

Using these strengths, it would be possible for you to sharpen what the gut tells. When intuition is validated with the right data at the right time, the possibilities are limitless. A marketer can do so much more than simply reacting to what the customer wants. Now the marketing department can do more than putting out fires. Marketing professionals can leverage AI tools for guiding them better towards a proactive understanding of customer journeys. They can read customer needs before they emerge. They can avoid mistakes before they raise their slippery heads. They can fix pain-points before someone else uses/abuses them. But to use these tools, one needs the right levels of expertise and experience. This is why so many professionals are eager and excited to join this AI course. They have realized that there is something called ‘intuillegence’ which is more powerful than what intuition or intelligence, placed alone, ever were.

Do not waste the experience and intuitive molars that you hold as a marketing professional. Give them the edge of AI. It is time to sink your teeth at the exact problem spot. It is time to put that marketing finger at the exact pulse without doubt or guesswork. It is time to be empowered with AI.