Enhancing Productivity: The Advantages of AI in Various Industries, with Case Studies
Peter / December 19, 2023
Enhancing
Productivity: The Advantages of AI in Various Industries, with Case Studies
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is creating a
massive impact in areas of life with recent progress. It is challenging the
trends, workflows, and traditional paradigms.
Since the birth of AI, researchers and
developers have been trying to enhance productivity and make processes more
efficient. Fortunately, we have witnessed prominent benefits of AI in various
industries over the past decade.
In this blog post, we will discuss how AI is
enhancing productivity and how it plays an important role in revolutionizing
industries.
Let's start with the basics.
What Does Enhancing
Productivity Mean?
When we talk about enhancing productivity,
there are two key aspects:
- Efficiency
- Effectiveness
Efficiency is a relationship between inputs
and outputs. For increasing efficiency, the input should be less, and the
output should be more.
It is the ability to do the desired task with
minimum resources, time, and effort. Productivity increases with the increase
in efficiency, which reflects minimal cost and maximum profit.
On the other hand, effectiveness focuses on
achieving the desired results or best outcome. It involves doing the right
things in the right way to create the greatest impact.
How AI Enhances
Productivity
AI develops human intelligence in machines or
programs so that they can perform tasks without human intervention. It trains
machines through a set of data and makes them able to learn, think, and make
decisions like humans.
Thus, if a machine can think like a human, it
can do a lot of things more efficiently and with minimal errors and resources.
It can replace humans in various areas and increase productivity.
For instance, we have chatbots integrated into
websites for customers. These bots can understand the problems and queries of
customers and respond accordingly. They can provide valuable information and
steps to solve the issue. However, when there is a need for human intervention,
human representatives can take over the chatbot to proceed further. Overall,
chatbots reduce the human effort needed to deal with customers, which reduces
the number of representatives needed for assistance and improves productivity.
AI is even improving productivity in our daily
lives. You don't need to have personal assistance for many tasks when you have
Siri. You can make your to-do lists, set an alarm, play music, and do various
things just by voice commands. It is intelligent enough to help you out in
day-to-day matters.
What AI Does to
Enhance Productivity?
Artificial Intelligence enhances productivity
in businesses, industries, and even personal life. Some of the notable ways in
which it enhances productivity are:
Automation
People get tired of doing the same stuff again
and again. If anything is repetitive, it can be replaced by AI to make it
automated. It ensures that people have something creative and more important to
do instead of wasting time on something that does not require human
intervention.
Back in the day, attendance in companies,
schools, and other places used to be on a notebook. With the passage of time,
it became computerized, and workers used to enter the data into a computer.
Now, this work has been replaced by AI in
various sectors. The AI recognizes the faces and eyes of people entering and
exiting the vicinity. The whole process has been automated, so there is no need
for an employee here. The AI attendance system is time-saving, error-free, and
cost-saving.
This is a simple example of AI automation and
advantages. We have AI doing tons of things for us and automating different
areas of business and human life.
Data Analysis and
Decision-making
Data analysis is a necessity, but it is
tedious—making employees tired and exhausted. And if the analysis is
repetitive, it becomes another headache. The difficulty of data analysis
increases with the increase in the amount of data, and sometimes, it becomes
impossible for humans to analyze it quickly.
That is where AI can play its role—machine
learning, to be specific. It involves training algorithms to make them able to
learn from the fed data. It can take big sets of data and do analysis in no
time, which is not possible for humans.
AI can analyze data with optimal accuracy. It
can analyze the trends and come up with predictions. It can make better
decisions and ensure minimal errors.
Weather forecast is a significant application
where AI can take over human intervention. It can improve decision-making and
provide close predictions. It can analyze the existing atmospheric data through
machine learning algorithms and offer valuable insights that can be beneficial
for mankind. It is fast, accurate, and more efficient than human predictions.
AI has been doing weather forecasts since the
1970s, and we are going to witness more efficient and beneficial AI weather
forecasts in the near future.
Communication
Efficient communication is a necessity for
businesses. Whether it be communication with colleagues, customers, or clients,
every type of communication matters.
With AI, it is possible to do real-time
translations for effective and better communication. So, no matter what
language you speak, you can communicate with anyone. We can turn transcripts,
captions, or even voices into the desired language, tone, and voice.
Due to fast-paced AI progress, we might not
need human interpreters in the future. It can make communication a lot more
effective and efficient.
Even in an organization or web app, AI is used
to translate the words of a colleague or person into the desired language.
Let's take Facebook as an example. M2M-100 of Facebook AI can translate between any pair
of its 100 compatible languages. It explains how AI makes it easier to interact
with people from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds.
Personalization
AI helps in finding personalized solutions
according to the user.
Say you open YouTube and log in through a new
account. You start watching videos and make a couple of searches. Now, YouTube's AI algorithm will try to figure out what you like to
watch, and you will see similar videos on your feed or home page.
If you watch shows like Shark Tank, it will
show you different episodes, shorts, etc. If you like Kobe Bryant, you will
mostly see Kobe's video at the top.
YouTube users see personalized video
recommendations and content they interact with through subscriptions, comments,
likes, etc.
This is a simple example of how AI
personalized things. And when things get personalized according to the user,
the productivity is enhanced.
Resource Management
For increasing efficiency, resource management
is of utmost importance. Spending the right number of resources at the right
time ensures maximum output and profitability.
AI can manage human resources as well as other
resources for any task. It can help in,
Energy management: Utilizing electricity for heating, cooling,
machines, and other things efficiently Balance workload: Analyzing people and resources needed for a
task and allocating resources accordingly Prioritize tasks: Arranging tasks according to their importance
to do the right thing at the right time Creating a perfect team: AI can create perfect teams for any task by
analyzing the skills, qualifications, availability, and other factors.
Benefits of AI in
Various Industries and Businesses
The benefits of AI are revolutionizing
industries, businesses, and various areas of life.
Let's see some of the major industries and how
AI is enhancing productivity.
Health
During COVID-19, analyzing huge patient
databases was not a simple task. However, it was critical to act quickly and
fight this disease to protect the human race.
EpitoGen technology was developed by the researchers with the
help of AI. It helped in detecting antibodies from patient samples and offered
99% accuracy.
AI played a vital role in COVID-19 in clinical
decision-making, vaccine development, handling big data, etc. It can
drastically change the landscape of the health industry. The AI applications
can help in diagnostics by looking at X-rays, CT scans, and MRI data. They can
give faster and more accurate results, which enhances productivity.
Similarly, AI can analyze patient's data and
assist healthcare professionals in treatments and personalized medicines. It
improves overall service and saves a ton of time.
Other than these areas, AI is playing its role
in remote patient monitoring, managing health records, drug development,
chatbot consultation, and a lot more.
Manufacturing
AI takes manufacturing to the next level and
makes everything a lot easier, faster, and error-free. With this incredible technology, we have
incorporated robots into the manufacturing side. These robots do hazardous,
time-consuming, and laborious tasks in no time.
For instance, in car manufacturing, painting a
car's body is preferred to be done with the help of robots. These ensure even
coating on every part or side and ensure optimal accuracy. Employees can stay
away from this hazardous task and focus on something more important.
AI programs can work well in quality control.
They can find faults and defects in the product and improve the product quality
for customers. Similarly, robots are being used in assembling, handling,
packaging, waste reduction, etc.
E-commerce
The E-commerce industry has incorporated AI to
automate processes and make things faster.Using AI, we can improve the experience of
users visiting the website. It gives personalized recommendations of the
products based on previous searches, history, purchases, special events, and
other factors. Thus, users easily find what they are looking for along with the
recommended choices. It increases sales and the overall experience of the
customer.
Secondly, AI can manage all your inventory and
automate the whole process. For instance, if Christmas is near, it predicts
suitable items to restock, such as lights, baubles, greeting cards, candles,
Christmas trees, etc. Machine learning algorithms can understand the demand for
products according to events and trends and increase your sales by stocking the
products at the right time.
Moreover, AI can do automated marketing, such
as sending emails to customers, applying discounts on products, improving
customer engagement, etc. Not only that, you can control the whole supply chain
and make better decisions using AI.
Finance and Banking
Over the past years, AI has revolutionized
traditional banking systems and finance.
With powerful AI applications and software,
fraud detection has become a lot easier. The algorithms can analyze the
transactions and detect any fraudulent activity.
The second important benefit of AI in banking
is automated credit scoring. Based on the previous records of the customer, the
system can give scores and automatically evaluate the credit amount. It reduces
the number of defaulters. Automation makes decision-making and credit scoring
faster than ever before and requires minimal human interference.
Bank customers look for personalized
investment options, banking services, saving plans, etc. AI can automate this
process by recommending personalized services that can be beneficial for
customers. It can be done through emails, messages, and websites.
Other than these, AI helps in regulatory
reporting, data analysis, customer service, document processing, authentication
services, etc.
Programming
Programming is a tiring process, but an AI
program can make it quicker and easier.
Programmers use AI to complete a part of the
code to save time. They can get the code snippets they need without any hassle
and then make changes they want.
AI is quite helpful in code generation as well
as bug detection. It can analyze the whole code and make bug detection simpler
than ever before. It can even suggest fixes to make the code bug-free and more
efficient. Secondly, programmers also spend a lot of time
testing their codes. AI can automate this process and give better results.
AI can assist programmers in many ways and
increase overall productivity.
Customer Service
Businesses are now relying on AI to improve
their customer service. They want to serve customers faster without any queue
and offer a reliable solution to their problems.
You will see a chatbot on different types of
websites, whether it be E-commerce, banking, SaaS, etc. All these businesses
have automated chatbots that listen to the queries and problems of the
customers and help them find the right solution.
Similar to chatbots, there are AI ticketing
systems, automated email responses, appointment scheduling, and various other
things to make customer service more efficient and effective.
AI can also analyze the feedback left by
customers after interacting with a chatbot/customer representative or leaving a
product review. The analysis can help in improving customer service, finding
faulty products, and actions that can improve the business.
Marketing
AI has made marketing more efficient. It
analyzes the data of people to show relevant ads to maximize conversions. We call it personalized marketing that
understands the users' behavior, demographics, interests, age, gender, and
other things to serve relevant ads. It helps in targeting the right customer at
the right time. You can even automate A/B testing, email
marketing campaigns, conversion & revenue calculations, and various areas
of marketing to save time and increase ROI (Return on Investment). With the help of generative AI, you can create
content, images, videos, voiceovers, etc. Writing an email or blog post,
gathering new ideas, and creating new images are just a few clicks away.
OpenAI's GPT-4 is capable of creating content
of your choice. Its DALL-E can also make images according to your prompts.Similarly, you can find tons of AI tools, such
as text-to-voiceover and image-editing apps. By using these AI tools, enhancing
marketing productivity becomes a lot easier.
Human Resource
AI can handle human resources and play a vital
role in enhancing productivity.
Large organizations have massive data,
including records, attendance, achievements, salary, benefits, and a lot of
things that require a separate department with many HR professionals. AI can
manage and analyze this massive data efficiently, reducing the need for human
effort.
AI can do talent acquisition and recruitment.
It can automatically filter resumes and send suitable candidates to the next
stage. It is better than manual screening and allows HR teams to work faster.
It can also complete the onboarding process, including document verification,
contract signing, etc.
Some companies use AI tools to manage
employees. The intelligent system can help employees take leaves on suitable
dates, recommend personalized courses, schedule meetings, take employees'
feedback, track performance, etc.
Explore Real-world
Case Studies Showcasing AI's Productivity Benefits
Study of a Fortune
500 Software Firm by MIT and Stanford
MIT and Stanford did research on a Fortune 500 software firm that used
generative AI in the workplace. There were over 5,000 customer support agents
having diverse experience, backgrounds, and qualifications.
The researchers measured the productivity of
support agents for one year. The productivity of support agents that used
generative AI for creating scripts increased by 14% on average.
The study shows that the effect of using AI
was more novice and low-skilled workers. Their productivity increased by 35%.
With the help of AI, inexperienced and new agents were working better than the
experienced ones. However, the effect on highly skilled, experienced, and
trained agents was minimal. According to the research, AI can be helpful
for early-career employees and can boost their productivity levels in no time.
On the other hand, experienced employees can train AI for better results and
help it improve for others.
The research also shows the benefits of AI on
the whole business. It improved customer satisfaction and resolved customer
queries faster. It also improved employee retention by reducing the workload
and making multitasking easier and less stressful.
AI Improves
Developer's Productivity
This study is based on the use of GitHub Copilot, which is an AI pair
programmer. It helps programmers to complete their code faster. The researchers recruited 70 experienced
programmers to implement an HTTP server in JavaScript. The developers were
divided into two groups. One was the treatment group that had access to GitHub
Copilot, and the second group was the control group that didn't use AI tools.
The results were astonishing. The group that
did not use any AI tools completed the code in 2.7 hours, while the group that
used GitHub Copilot completed the task in 1.2 hours, which is 55.8% faster.
It shows how AI can increase the productivity
of programmers and help them code faster. They can save time for other critical
tasks and enhance productivity.
Faster and Better
Business Documents with ChatGPT
A recent study by MIT students shows the enhancement in productivity after
using ChatGPT for business documents.
Four hundred forty-four experienced business
professionals from various fields, including marketers, data analysts, writers,
and HR professionals, participated in this study.
They were assigned two documents each. All
these participants wrote the first document without AI tools. For the second
document, half of the users used AI tools, while the remaining wrote without
AI.
The first round, in which all participants
wrote documents without AI assistance, produced the same results. It proved
that all professionals are well-skilled and professionals and both groups are
equal.
The results of the second round were
astonishing. The group that didn't use AI completed the task in 27 minutes,
while the group that used AI completed the tasks in 17 minutes. ChatGPT helped
professionals to increase productivity by 59%.
After writing, the documents were graded by
professionals. The documents that were written with the help of AI were graded
better than the others. It proved that even though AI assisted writers to
complete the task faster, there was no compromise on the quality.