Artificial Intelligence: how can it help companies?

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Digital Transformation has driven companies to adopt Artificial Intelligence and Big Data technologies to become more competitive, more efficient in data analysis and more intelligent in supporting decision-making.

But where does this Artificial Intelligence come from?
In the early 1950s, Alan Turing presented the first theoretical concepts about intelligent machines in his article " Computing Machinery and Intelligence ". The term "Artificial Intelligence" was coined six years later by John McCarthy at a conference among experts in the field. Since then, several ways of establishing intelligent behavior in machines have been developed.

In the last decade, we have seen this term become popular. The digital revolution, which we have been witnessing since the beginning of the 21st century, has changed the way people and companies interact. As a result, there has been an israel whatsapp number database increase in the volume of data coming from these interactions. This was one of the main factors that led to Artificial Intelligence mechanisms playing a relevant role in several business areas . With the amount of information available, companies felt the need to develop intelligent tools to process and analyze data automatically, in order to extract knowledge.

Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence technologies are a constant presence in our society . We can see them directly in televisions, mobile phones, virtual assistants (from Google, Apple, Amazon) and autonomous cars. But there are countless areas where they are applied without users noticing their presence, such as social networks, antivirus programs, e-commerce, streaming services and a multitude of other services.

What is Artificial Intelligence?
In general terms, Artificial Intelligence is a field of study that aims to provide computers with mechanisms that can reproduce human intelligence to solve problems . Its main objective is to create algorithms that enable machines to mimic human behavior in the way they learn, recognize patterns, reason and infer new knowledge from acquired knowledge.

It is a broad field that encompasses multiple areas of knowledge. However, there are three subfields that deserve to be highlighted, as they are the ones that have aroused the most interest among companies:

Machine Learning
Basically, machine learning consists of the development and application of advanced algorithms to automatically create knowledge representation models from a data set.

Like humans, machines learn and evolve through experience, through a process of trial and error. There is a learning phase, known as the “training” stage, where algorithms are trained with sample data. Historical data is typically used to create a model, whose performance is then iteratively adjusted and improved . After the training stage, the models are able to make predictions or make accurate decisions when faced with new situations related to the training data.

Deep Learning
It is considered an evolution of machine learning. The algorithms follow the same principle of learning through experience, but are inspired by the human brain. More specifically, by the way neurons process information. In practice, the models represent a structure of layered algorithms, the processing units, for extracting and transforming data features . As a general rule, they are called artificial neural networks and characterize a network of neurons that are connected to each other.

Information is introduced into this network and as it passes through it, it is processed in the different layers and directed along different paths, through the input and output signals that are processed by the different neurons. In the end, a response is produced based on the patterns and connections found in the information .

In recent years, these types of techniques have undergone enormous evolution, in part due to their success in learning complex patterns in image, text and speech recognition tasks.

Natural Language Processing
It is an area of ​​study focused on understanding and simulating natural languages. More specifically, it focuses on providing computers with the ability to analyze, recognize, generate and interpret human language. In addition to understanding language, efforts are also focused on enabling machines to create responses based on the context in which they are interacting, through text or audio.

Contrary to what it may seem, this is a complex area, which presents immense challenges, because in addition to there being multiple languages, the meaning of phrases and words varies depending on the context, tone of voice, punctuation and a variety of other factors.

This has been one of the areas of great interest and intense development in recent years. It has been applied in the development of virtual assistants, translation engines, sentiment analysis, search engines and speech recognition.

What benefits can Artificial Intelligence technologies bring to companies?
Before presenting the benefits of Artificial Intelligence technologies, it is important to mention three important factors that must be taken into consideration in order to successfully apply these technologies in companies:

Quantity and quality of data
Having a large amount of data is not enough. There is a well-known principle in this area that says "garbage in, garbage out" in the system. Therefore, the data must be appropriate and prepared for the domain of the problem that is intended to be solved.

Know the problem domain well
The field of Artificial Intelligence is vast, encompassing technologies for both broad and more specific uses. Therefore, by understanding the problem domain well, we can channel our efforts into studying and adapting the most appropriate technologies to solve the problem.

Have qualified employees in the area
The application of Artificial Intelligence technologies is not trivial. In addition to the fact that different technologies can be used to achieve the same goal, the efficiency in solving the problem can vary depending on the methods used. In most cases, it is necessary to have people capable of implementing systems for data processing, for the analysis and extraction of data characteristics and for creating and validating predictive models.

What are the benefits of Artificial Intelligence?
It is a fact that Artificial Intelligence technologies are an asset and can bring countless benefits to the business world. Below are some of the most relevant benefits:

1. They allow you to automate repetitive learning processes
The learning process can be applied to tasks that are repeated over and over again. It simply gives us the possibility of having machines analyze and extract knowledge from large volumes of data, 24 hours a day, reliably and automatically. In addition, it has the advantage of not having the factors that are normally associated with human error such as fatigue, emotional involvement and the propensity to perform biased analyses.

2. Help identify patterns and behaviors
These systems are able to learn and recognize patterns in large data sets that would otherwise be very difficult to identify. For example, imagine that customers in a supermarket tend to buy beer when they buy diapers and snacks. If the supermarket quickly understands this consumption pattern, it can group all these items together in one place and increase sales of those items.

3. They enable cost and deadline reduction
Sometimes, small changes in management or in the process chain can lead to additional gains for companies, such as cost reduction, shorter delivery times, increased efficiency and reduced consumption of raw materials. Artificial intelligence allows process chains to be optimized dynamically, adapting the best strategy at any given moment, through predictions or behavioral guidance in real time.

4. Support decision-making
Good decisions can make all the difference in the success and growth of a business. Increasingly, decisions must be made based on concrete data in order for companies to remain competitive or differentiate themselves in saturated, dynamic and challenging markets. Therefore, by combining Big Data, Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence solutions, companies have the opportunity to process data faster and extract more assertive and comprehensive insights, resulting in better decisions that are less susceptible to errors.