We all hear great stories about the applications that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has for the business world. Big tech firms, such as Google, Netflix and Facebook, are already leveraging the technology to a large extent to create more value (or capture more value, depends on who you ask). However, these tech giants sit on a large pile of resources, financial but also human, that they can use to do research and investments in AI. So is this shift attainable for smaller organizations as well?
For organizations in any industry, the shift to AI is a great effort. It takes many man hours, and huge sums of investments to install an adequate AI project. Peter Skomoroch, a data scientist, tweeted: “As a rule of thumb, you can expect the transition of your enterprise company to machine learning will be about 100x harder than your transition to mobile” (Bergstein, 2019). It is a warning sign for the hurdles that future-oriented organizations will have to jump if they want to be one of the early adopters of AI. However, the technology has already paid off for the firms that were early to the party, so putting an investment in AI on your budget should be a no-brainer, right?
That may be, if you are part of a global corporation like IBM or GE. However, not all companies have the resources to hire PHDs in data science, particularly SMEs. And even if they could afford the investment, SMEs are historically less likely to take risky investments, because one bad investment could be detrimental to these organizations that typically have no adequate financial buffers (Forbes.com, 2019). Therefore, it is easy to understand why SMEs are lagging behind in AI investments. Which is a shame, because SMEs form the backbone of any economy, and could greatly benefit from more AI adoption (HitechNectar, 2019).
So how can SMEs make use of AI without the need for large, risky investments? The great thing is that SMEs don’t need to reinvent the wheel if they want to start using AI. The reason is that larger technology firms as well as start-ups have developed platforms and software that any company can use (Hackernoon.com, 2019). Payment can be a one-time fee or on subscription basis, but the point is that the costs for the AI investment that the technology provider occurred are in a sense distributed among all users of the technology. Examples are this are automated customer support with chatbots, competitor-tracking software, or an easily adaptable Machine Learning platform that can be used to create efficiencies in email management, process optimization, and much more.
So if you are part of an SME and want to jump on the AI hype train, keep in mind that it is in fact a possibility.
References:
Bergstein, B. (2019). This is why AI has yet to reshape most businesses. [online] MIT Technology Review. Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612897/this-is-why-ai-has-yet-to-reshape-most-businesses/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Forbes.com. (2019). Council Post: How SMEs Can Catch The AI Wave. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/08/07/how-smes-can-catch-the-ai-wave/#3f12c87c24a6 [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Hackernoon.com. (2019). How Can AI Help Small Businesses?. [online] Available at: https://hackernoon.com/how-can-ai-help-small-businesses-e3f6938d384b [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
HitechNectar. (2019). AI- The Preferred Direction of Modern SMEs | Artificial Intelligence. [online] Available at: https://www.hitechnectar.com/blogs/ai-preferred-modern-smes/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
