In 2021, a staggering percentage of CEOs in the United States (85%) introduced AI technology into their businesses. This is a large percentage compared to the year 2020, whereby a lesser amount of CEOs use AI.
A lot of people are speculating the cause of this larger percentage to be as a result of COVID-19. Some others said, as much as COVID-19 could be the trigger of that massive change.
No CEO wants to be left out when it comes to future technology. The earlier a company introduces AI technology to its services, the better it is for them.
AI technology has been the cause of some business organizations’ great progress lately. In 2022, a construction company recorded an increase in the productivity of its company.
The increment was a result of the introduction of AI technology. As much as the benefits of AI technology are great, we can’t neglect the fact that there are also bad sides to it.
And with the current speed at which AI technology is evolving, speculations are going on that; a lot of businesses won’t survive the test of time.
What they will be doing would already be replicated by AI technology. But can we say a lot of people will lose their jobs, so therefore we won’t use AI? No, we can’t deny the positive impact AI technology has on the business world.
And that’s why, in this article, we are going to talk about the pros and cons of AI technology in business.
This is just to enlighten you about how AI can help or mar us. This way, we can know the capability of AI technology.
What does AI technology in business means?
AI technology in business talks about the way AI technology is impacting the business world generally. With the introduction of technology and now a more advanced technology called AI.
A lot of businesses have been booming with profit and their popularity has spread out far and near. The impact of AI technology in the business world can’t be neglected at all. Some businesses won’t even exist if not because of AI technology.
That is why AI in business is all about ease and comfort as well as the negative side effects it brings to the human populace.
How can you introduce AI technology to your business?
Introducing AI technology to your business doesn’t require you to face any stress at all. As you just have to know what activities AI technology can do for you with ease.
With just that alone, your business can have a touch of AI technology as well. Now, here is this important thing to note.
The kind of impact AI technology is going to have on your business depends more on the way you use it.
Most people don’t have much information on AI technology before introducing it to their businesses, which is why they become victims of their investment.
Yes, introducing AI technology into your business is an investment that you want to make a profit on. And without proper knowledge or orientation about AI technology, you might just not make a profit but instead lose.
That is why the saying that says, “Knowledge is wealth” is not a false statement. As much as AI technology can bring you more good, it can also bring you more harm.
There is a need for you to know how you can introduce it to your company. You have to get a proper understanding of AI technology, especially in your workplace.
You don’t want to make your staff get scared of being replaced by AI technology. As you know, your staff will always get worried about AI technology taking their place in your organization.
That’s what you have to ensure the technology you are introducing into your business is not going to make your workers get scared of losing their jobs.
Humans are emotional individuals who sometimes do terrible things when they have their emotions disarrayed.
Humans losing their job can cause them to do terrible things to a company they were once working for.
Yea! True, you can get them arrested but the damage is done already to your business, and might take a while before the damage clears. So, I will say you should act with caution when introducing AI technology to your business.
Another thing you should take note of is, how AI technology operates is different. AI can’t think for itself, even the so-called “generative AI” can’t perform cognitive ability.
It is only acting like it can. When in the true sense, it is the data in it database that is doing the major work. AI can’t work without data, so the kind of data you give your AI tool is what it works with.
This is why, before introducing AI technology to your business. Be sure that there is a particular work AI technology can perform effectively and efficiently.
This is because it is important for the growth of your business. Another thing is that your staff must be ready to work with the new AI technology you are introducing to your business.
If that’s sorted out, then one major milestone has been crossed in your business.
Which business should use AI technology?
This is a major question. A lot of business owners don’t know if their business can use AI technology or it can’t.
First of all, business owners should know that AI technology is now getting more diversified. There are very few business organizations that don’t need AI technologies.
A vast majority of business organizations need AI technology in their system. About 85% of business owners in 2022 switched to AI technology.
With the incident of COVID-19, a lot of businesses now see the impact of AI technology. During the lockdown, AI was still functioning at its peak.
Any business that involves people and contains some task that does not require you to use cognitive ability for all the tasks can use AI technology.
People who work in jobs where constant critical reasoning is needed, emotion is needed, and compassion is needed can’t utilize AI technology for a lot of tasks.
As AI can’t think for itself, it only uses information that is stored in its database to perform some level of reasoning.
So when thinking of introducing AI technology to your business, ensure that you have repetitive tasks at hand that AI technology tools can do with no error.
Any business that is not doing repetitive tasks will have to do away with AI technology. As there is nothing they can do with AI technology in their businesses.
Now that we have come to know a bit about AI in businesses, let’s get to know the impact it can cause on our businesses on a full scale.
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Pros and cons of AI in Business
Pros of AI technology in business
The positive side of AI technology in business is quite impressive to the extent that you can almost think of why it has disadvantages.
There is this saying; It doesn’t matter how great a tool is, it will always have a disadvantage. There’s also this saying no matter how bad a thing is, there is also a good side to it. So, let’s get to the good side of AI technology in business.
1. AI technology provides an automated machine learning model
The invention of AI technology in the business field allows the creation of Automated ML models. Automated machine learning algorithms has made a lot of business do well in their analysis.
As they don’t have to manually rain the machine learning model by themselves hereby saving them a lot of time to do other things.
The invention of automated machine learning algorithms allows businesses to be able to address complex issues without any forehand training.
2. It provides better customer service relationships
Just as said earlier, AI technology is well advanced when it comes to customer service relationships.
It is quite amazing how AI tools can help businesses communicate with their customers smartly even when they don’t have emotions.
And the funny thing is, these AI tools do it amazingly well. Such that the customers don’t get to know it is a bot that is chatting with them.
AI technology has made a lot of businesses build good solid relationships with their customers without themselves doing the majority of the hard work.
Don’t get me wrong, indeed, AI can’t replace customer service. It can instead help out with chatting with customers just to prevent from keeping customers waiting.
And in cases that need experts’ attention, it directs the customer to the customer service expert.
3. It improves the level of efficiency
When it comes to increasing efficiency, AI technology is good at it. Jobs that involve data accreditation, data analysis, and other data field require a high degree of efficiency.
This is so because data are always needed to plan for the next course of action. And if errors are present in the provided data, it can affect the decision-making of the next course of action.
That is why the task that revolves around data must be done efficiently. With AI-technology, you can be sure to do tasks around data in the right manner.
4. AI technology makes decision-making easier
When it comes to making the right decision for your business, a lot of critical thinking is needed.
With AI technology, decision-making is a lot easier. As business owners can utilize the analyzing power of AI technology to do some in-depth analysis.
This way, a lot of manual analyzing time supposed to be used by human business analysts is saved for other purposes.
Another thing is, AI technology contains lots of data that are easy to access and useful for business analysis.
With this availability of data, decision-making on some business matters is easily achievable and backed up with valid reasons.
5. AI technology helps in delivering personalized products and services
There is hardly any business that doesn’t want to deliver exactly the need of a customer.
The only problem is, it is not an easy task to do as there are a lot of things to consider before personalized service can be delivered.
With AI technology, it is different. Business owners can use AI technology to take in product and service feedback data from customers both new and old.
The collected data is then analyzed by the AI tool. With the generated results gotten from the AI tool, businesses can use that in their business strategy.
In the long run, both the customers and the business owners are going to be pleased with the results of the new strategy.
6. It helps to cut down costs
What brings profit to a business is when the cost is lower than the profit generated. As much as you have lots of staff working under you, some tasks should be done by AI tools as well.
Repetitive tasks should be done by AI tools so you can either save the money going into paying workers to do that task or you invest it.
Apart from the fact that AI tools doing those tasks save money, they also save time as well.
This way, those workers doing the repetitive tasks can do other tasks that require more manpower and thinking as well.
7. AI can increase the revenue of businesses
Every business wants to make more revenue so they can expand. Businesses using both AI technology and human powers always do a lot better than those using either only AI tools or human power alone.
Not all businesses indeed support AI technology. But the ones that support AI and are not using it won’t do as much as those in the same field that are utilizing AI.
To make more profit in your business, AI technology, and human power can make that happen easily.
From personalization of customers’ requests to improved customer care relationships to an increased level of efficiency in achieving business tasks, etc.
Each one of them is made possible with the help of AI technology.
Cons of AI technology in business
Here we are at the disadvantages of AI technology in business. Mind you, this is for you to just know the possible bad outcomes that can occur when using AI technology in your business.
You knowing them and applying wisdom in the application of AI technology in your business won’t even let you experience this bad outcome.
As they only appear, when a business does not take necessary precautions when using AI technology.
Since you have a bit of understanding of why the cons are available let’s get to know the possible bad outcome that can occur when AI technology is not used wisely in business;
1. Loss of Jobs
There is no employee replaced by AI technology that will be pleased with the boss that sacks him. So you as a boss don’t want to cut the source of livelihood of your staff.
So when using AI tools in your business be sure you use them in a way that staff won’t be affected.
As you know, a business becomes successful mainly because the staffs working in that organization are satisfied and are working happily, even though not all staffs are fully satisfied.
But at least there is a level of satisfaction to a greater extent.
Use AI tools in areas where a repetitive task is the order of the day and then put the workers in that area into other sectors you think they can fit in.
At the same time, you don’t want to say because you don’t want to hurt your staff’s feelings; you will now hurt your business by putting incapable workers into the field you know fully well they can’t fit in.
2. AI can’t be fully trusted with sensitive information
In matters of privacy, you can’t trust AI technology to keep your sensitive information safe. There is this saying, “Any secretive information stored on any AI-technology tool is no longer a secret.”
This is because any technological tool can be hacked down by hackers who can then leak the information to third parties.
It doesn’t matter how tight the security of the AI tool is, or how complex the algorithm of the smart tool is.
So far, it is a technological tool, your information can be leaked out. To avoid being a victim of leaked data, avoid keeping sensitive data on AI-technology tools.
3. AI tools sometimes generate incorrect information
Although this is a very rare situation, as all AI tools always undergo different pieces of training by different AI- technology authorizers before getting to the public.
It can’t be cancelled out that AI tools can’t make mistakes. So to avoid that mistake since you can’t tell which wrong information it will give out, you should verify every piece of information your AI tool generates for you, so your decision-making process with AI tools can be successful.
4. Overly dependent on AI technology
There is this confidence and reliance that comes with using a good AI tool. Since it doesn’t fail with its decisions and always provides correct information for you. You trust it to always deliver.
This feeling is bad as there are times it can fail and you won’t notice it in time. For the fact that AI tool is created by humans, you shouldn’t overly depend on it.
Right from time, it is not advisable to depend on humans for anything as they mostly fail. So, depending overly on the tools they make is not a smart decision.
Instead, do your research every time you want to use AI tools for something important. This is just a safety precaution.
5. AI tools are expensive
As a business owner, you should spend within your budget when it comes to purchasing AI tools. Most AI tools if not all of them are expensive to purchase.
And it can be difficult to purchase especially when you are just starting. So if you want to purchase AI tools, spend within your budget.
Don’t go overboard as there might be a need to employ other individuals who can operate the AI software accurately.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does AI technology benefit business?
Using AI technology in business provides a lot of benefits. Most business success today is attributed to the effect of AI technology.
As a business, you need competency, accuracy, efficiency, and many other qualities to make your business grow. With AI technology, you can easily achieve this.
As you can assign it task and within a short while, it is done with the task. This way you have higher productivity in your business.
Also, in cases of customer personalization, AI technology is helpful. The goal of every business is to satisfy their customers.
And to satisfy your customers, you have to know what they want. So, you can deliver it to them. Using AI technology, it is easier to achieve this feat.
What problems can AI technology solve in businesses?
One major way to use AI technology in your business is through automation. Certain tasks can be done efficiently by AI with no errors.
This type of task is referred to as a repetitive task. AI technology can perform this task smoothly with no glitches.
You just have to instruct the AI tool on what it should do, that’s all. Also, in areas of decision making, it can be difficult at times to conclude, especially when there are a lot of factors to put into consideration.
With AI technology, it is a different scenario. AI technology has access to a lot of data that it can use.
So, when it comes to making a decision, AI tools can help you in making the right decision by providing a detailed analysis that covers all the factors you have to consider before making the decision. This way, you make more informed decisions with ease.
How does AI affect the future of business?
The current effect of AI in business is already impressive. A lot of organizations are using AI technology in their production and the results are great.
Also, some other businesses are rushing into incorporating AI technology in their business model since they don't want to be left behind.
With all this happening, there is no time AI technology will be wrong in business.
Also, there is no way the future of AI technology in business won't be great. Some influential men in the world even said the future is AI technology.
And this statement was said based on the kind of progress AI is making. Currently, every business owner is looking forward to what AI will do in the business field in the future times to come.
Why is AI important in decision-making in business?
Ever wondered why long business meetings are done in various businesses? It is because coming to an informed decision is a problem.
With a lot of information to go through, and a lot of factors to consider, it is very difficult to come to a well-informed decision.
But with AI technology, that problem is solved. Every AI tool for decision-making is always loaded with a lot of information and statistical data.
So, when businesses incorporate AI technology into their businesses, making informed decisions becomes a lot easier.
Combining the suggestions of AI technology tools and your analysis, produce incredible results.
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Conclusion
And as a business owner, for any technology that looks promising to your business, you have to make a swift decision into using it.
Just so you can reap the most benefits if not all before your competitors wake up to the reality.
Since you are the first business owner to use that AI technology, you have to take the necessary precautions. So, you won't lose your business profitability.
With proper investigation of the pros and cons of the AI technology tool before using it. You might just get all the needed information you need to know about smart software.
All am saying is, whether it is old or new AI software, ensure you take the necessary precautions before using it in your business model.
Even when you are using it in your business, do well to keep your guard up on the information you input into the AI system.
