3 Misconceptions About AI that You Need to Lose
The result, for businesses of all shapes and sizes, is increased efficiency and productivity. A survey from Narrative Science found that almost half (48.5 percent) of businesses are already using AI to accumulate the data they need to make effective business decisions; 13.6 percent are using it for automated communications; and 6.1 percent are using it to eliminate time-consuming manual and repetitive tasks.
You clearly don’t need developer-level expertise to use these tools, because they’re not only being used by developers. Your business can also adopt AI without having Google- or Facebook-level resources. Smaller organizations tend to not adopt this technology because they aren’t aware of it, they haven’t implemented a workable digital transformation plan, or because employees are reluctant to embrace it.
The perception is that implementing AI is always and necessarily a hassle: a process that involves ripping out and replacing the entire IT infrastructure. This isn’t the case—and in fact it’s better to focus on introducing small adjustments and improvements wherever possible. The cumulative power of incremental changes should not be underestimated.
That said, if you’re going to introduce technology, you must be prepared to introduce more and more of it over time. Sitting on the fence will invariably lead to stagnation.
3. AI means the end of human employees. This is yet another big misconception about AI: that computers, whether they’re inside robots or otherwise, will take our jobs.
Now, AI will certainly take some jobs away, in the same way that the mechanised loom didn’t do much for professional weavers. Heavy administrative work, reporting, and other repetitive tasks probably don’t have much of a long-term future. But most jobs require a human touch to some extent or another. Counselors, recruiters, and healthcare workers, for example, have to interact with people, and no technology is ever going to effectively treat, calm, encourage, or cultivate trust as humans can.
For those in the business world, artificial intelligence isn’t going to absolve the need to maintain customer relationships. Instead, it will serve as an enabler of deeper and more informed bonds. Employees will have the insights they need to understand customer preferences and behaviours, but how successfully they use this information is still dependent on individual competence.
Besides which, we are seeing more and more adverts for roles that deal with managing machine learning and AI projects. Just as weavers became loom operators, those who harness the machines and maximixe their potential are the future. Tech giveth, and tech taketh away: As it removes jobs, so too will it create them. Projects that involve machine learning and other sophisticated developments will still need human intervention to truly succeed.
In his role as international managing director of Bullhorn, Peter Linas oversees international operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific and Japan (APAC). Linas joined Bullhorn in 2009 and was responsible for its highly successful U.K. launch. Linas has expanded Bullhorn’s reach into EMEA and APAC and achieved a user base of more than 10,000 international users. Prior to taking on the launch of Bullhorn in the U.K., Linas spent 20 years working in the recruitment industry and held a number of senior director roles before moving into the technology space.