Avi Ben Ezra explains how artificial intelligence can help businesses

With AI, tremendous progress was made in a short time. Avi Ben Ezra, the CTO of SnatchBot, the world’s leading marketplace for chatbots, is a keen researcher in artificial intelligence. He recently explained how AI can help businesses.

Less than 20 years ago industries and enterprises were dependent on legacy client/server applications. Those applications were written in a single language and in the majority of circumstances they were operated internally. Data could only be accessed by making use of desktop computers which was operating inside the company network firewall. However, with the start of the new millennium, there was increasingly more web-based applications which were produced by application developers. The operation of these web-based applications has become very quick and most of the delays have been eliminated. This has allowed for better user experiences as well as simplified workflows. Things are expected to improve even more in the nearby future. As more and better technologies emerge there can be no doubt that artificial intelligence tools will become even more powerful.

They will be increasingly able to simulate human intelligence. In a relatively short period of time, it can be expected that AI technologies will become even more sophisticated which will allow them to perform incredibly complex operations. There will be increased benefits and advantages resulting in better budgeting, and analysis, planning, and decision-making. In fact, many of those things which were formerly reserved for human beings will then be handled by artificial intelligence.

Today, we can already see how European governments and businesses benefit from chatbot technology. Numerous other advantages of RPA and AI have been outlined (See Avi Ben Ezra in Latribune). We can see that smart cloud-based technology, which essentially started in Israel and France, is now embraced worldwide, in multiple languages.

Companies and emerging technologies

It can be expected that enterprises will not hesitate to adopt emerging automation technologies. Industries can expect to see artificial intelligence technologies which will increasingly simulate some of the most outstanding features associated with human intelligence. It will be able to copy many of those human actions which will allow AI to be used in many diverse fields. This is expected to have a massive impact on the transformation of organizations and industries. All of these things will only be possible with careful planning and preparation. Not so long ago artificial intelligence was used primarily in order to support human actions but currently, artificial intelligence is successfully simulating human actions. However, we are now entering the time when artificial intelligence is able to supplement human intelligence and it will not be very long before AI will be able to simulate human intelligence.

Virtual assistants and chatbots

There are already software applications which are able to understand both text and voice. And not only that but they are also able to respond with preprogrammed answers. Virtual assistants and chatbots are already widely used in customer care departments. These departments will handle hundreds of customer queries every day and in this regard, chatbots have been found to be highly effective. With the currently available technologies, it is entirely possible to have a chatbot which is able to learn as it goes along. Over time the vocabulary will improve and it will be able to respond to increasingly complex questions. This is because chatbots make use of natural language processing which relies on learning algorithms and a variety of statistical methods to successfully analyze complex sentences. This allows chatbots to understand the meaning of those sentences, as well as the category to which that question belongs and also the urgency of the request. This allows the chatbot to assign a priority to that request and this can help to streamline the entire process.

The importance of machine learning

Because of machine learning, it is now possible for chatbots to substantially increase their accuracy. This is because they are constantly exposed to new questions which was not originally included in their programming data. All of the data relating to conversations even those which was not successfully answered is analyzed and with the use of algorithms, the chatbot is able to better understand what was intended. There is also RPA or robotic processing automation which is increasingly used to support efficient business processes. This involves the automation of system based activities which makes use of script and other methods in order to improve the conversation. Artificial intelligence also makes use of SDI or structured data interaction. This allows for integration to take place through the exchange of information that has been properly structured. There are many examples of this such as application programming interfaces or APIs, and relational database management. Another frequently used technology is natural language generation or NLG. This is simply technology that allows the generation of texts from structured information such as numerals and fields which appears during the conversation. This will be encountered were financial analysis reports are generated especially in relation to the financial performance of a company. Artificial intelligence has come a long way in a very short time and new technologies are constantly emerging.