Unlocking the power of AI across industries: A new era of innovation

The spotlight on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undeniable, but most of its applications have so far been centered around consumer software internet, or the tech industry. Beyond the tech realm, AI adoption remains relatively scarce, indicating that we are still in the early stages of its transformative potential.

Currently, the highest-value AI projects are huge operations, often undertaken by tech giants like Amazon and Google. These ventures, worth billions of dollars, involve activities such as targeted advertising, web search optimization, and e-commerce product recommendations. Companies like Google can afford to assemble teams of hundreds of engineers to craft a single piece of software that delivers more relevant ads to their billions of users. For many companies in the tech industry, this equation proves profitable, generating massive financial returns.

The ‘Long Tail’ of AI adoption

However, when we venture beyond the consumer software internet domains, the landscape changes significantly. Few companies have the vast user bases necessary to make such colossal AI investments worthwhile. In most other industries, we enter what can be described as the “long tail” of AI adoption, where projects might be valued at a few million dollars; not billions. While these moderate value AI projects still generate substantial savings and improvements for most businesses, the idea of employing dozens or even hundreds of highly skilled engineers for relatively modest projects simply doesn’t add up.

Consider, for instance, AI use cases like summaries of text heavy material (e.g. court judgments), predicting defects in manufacturing, or forecasting the value of new product launches; there can be thousands of million dollar AI opportunities in just one sector. Until now, these opportunities have been very difficult to execute on because of the high costs of customization.

A whole value chain of AI tools

So, how can this new era of technological development make AI accessible and practical for a myriad of small and mid-sized businesses across diverse industries? The answer is in the evolution of a whole value chain of AI tools, which now pave the way for aggregating use cases and simplifying customization for end-users. The exciting emergence of low-code or no-code AI tools empowers traditional IT departments to tailor entire AI systems to their specific requirements. With these tools, a mid-sized company can train a custom AI system using their own data, whether it be text, images, or other forms of information, and unlock tremendous value.

Agricultural harvesting is a compelling use case illustrating how what was once seen as a moderate value AI project too expensive to execute on, now has become a lucrative investment. Using the latest advancements in computer vision technology, a mid-size agricultural company can build a deep learning model that uses real-time picture data to provide harvest forecasts and warnings about crop quality. As a result, it can unlock tremendous business value including optimized crop monitoring and improved sales planning, 10% increase in capacity, 30% reduction in energy consumption and 50% reduction in waste.

The democratization of AI

The driving force behind this transformative shift is prompting. Powered by large language models such as ChatGPT, text and visual prompting are on the verge of democratizing AI. By providing users with intuitive interfaces and simplified workflows, this technology facilitates the creation of tailored AI solutions without the need for extensive coding or engineering expertise.

In essence, this represents a pivotal moment in the journey of AI. It marks the transition from a domain predominantly concentrated in the tech world and consumer software internet sphere, to a broader landscape that encompasses all industries. By making AI accessible to a wider spectrum of businesses, we are extending its impact to the entire economy, which is far larger than the confines of the tech world.

There will be winners and losers in the AI race

As AI finds its way into businesses of all sizes and industries, some companies will win and some will lose. The victors will be those bold enough to act fast and embrace AI experimentation as a cornerstone of their innovation endeavors. For those companies, the possibilities of AI-driven transformation are boundless, promising a brighter, more efficient future. The democratization of AI is ushering in a pivotal moment where businesses must act quickly to remain competitive and drive efficiency and innovation in the new world order.