It’s a known fact that businesses worldwide are on the lookout for ways to improve their bottom line and increase profits. They’re all chasing optimum efficiency to meet those ends. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can help improve business processes.

Large data firms and organizations pioneer the exploration of AI for improving business processes. The best-kept secret, however, is that even small businesses can benefit from able deployment of AI and ML in their business processes.

How, you may ask? While artificial intelligence can redesign business processes, machine learning algorithms can streamline the existing business process automation, making businesses more profitable.

AI for Business Process Automation

Employing technology to automate any process while negating human intervention is called Process automation. Repetitive tasks can drive monotony in operations, impacting productivity, and these jobs beg to be automated. Automation doesn’t necessarily involve massive robots like on the industry floor. Even unassuming software can replace humans in specific tasks.

There are plenty of examples of business process automation with AI that are readily available. NASA used several RPA (Robotic Process Automation) systems to automate payments, spending, and HR. The effortless implementation of RPA systems at NASA made Jim Walker, the leader behind these projects, quip, “So far, it’s not rocket science.”

Updating Process Reengineering

Technology in the 90s was predominantly transactional and communications-based. It enabled efficient data capture and transfer within and across organizations. It’s the same job that AI does as well.

However, AI trains from large datasets to make predictions or classifications, helping businesses make better operational decisions faster. It improves efficiency by producing better outcomes.

AI implementation costs have drastically dropped in recent years. AI is now within general reach, thanks to falling computing costs, wide availability of the cloud, growth of low-cost bandwidth, and reduced cost of sensors. AI is now offered “off the shelf” for various business cases.

Deploying AI systems into business processes has drastically brought about changes. Due to AI, there is an uptick in visual image recognition and inspection, autonomous operations, and new content generation.

AI Drives Business Process Reengineering

AI-driven re-engineering is now gradually replacing robotic process automation (RPA) technologies which was the hallmark of any business process. Innovative companies are embedding AI into business processes as the rationale for a new look at end-to-end processes. Harnessing AI is significantly advantageous as businesses can now decide what humans and machines will do in their operations.

In a retail industry scenario, data directly comes from users/customers. AI can effectively unclutter big data from plain data through cognitive insight implementation. AI learns from the customer’s patterns, trends, preferences, and specifications and utilizes its gained knowledge to satisfy them.

You might have often wondered how Amazon gets precise recommendations on what you should buy next. Amazon has the ability to collect big data about its customers and run it through machine learning algorithms.

Key Benefits of AI-Powered Business Processes

• Increased Efficiency: AI automates manual tasks, reduces human error, and boosts productivity, allowing employees to focus on high-value activities.
• Enhanced Decision-Making: AI analyzes vast amounts of data, providing actionable insights that enable data-driven decision-making, leading to better outcomes.
• Improved Customer Experience: AI enables personalized and proactive customer interactions, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.
• Innovation Catalyst: AI-powered processes unlock new possibilities for innovation, enabling organizations to develop novel products, services, and business models.

Overcoming Challenges

• Data Quality and Availability: Ensuring data accuracy, completeness, and accessibility is crucial for AI-powered processes to deliver reliable results.
• Ethical Considerations: Addressing ethical concerns, such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency, to build trust and mitigate risks.
• Change Management: Changes to management strategies, including employee training and stakeholder buy-in.

Best Practices for AI-Powered business processes

• Start with a clear strategy: Define objectives and identify processes where AI can deliver the most significant impact.
• Data-Driven Approach: Collect and curate high-quality data, ensuring it aligns with the objectives of AI-powered processes.
• Collaboration: Foster a culture that embraces collaboration between AI and human workers, leveraging the strengths of both.
• Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Regularly update and refine to keep pace with changing business requirements and data patterns.

Can AI Optimize Business Processes?

The answer is yes. Now, more than ever, organizations are finding ways to make their business more efficient, streamlined, cost-effective, and able to better cope with the evolving market needs.

Artificial intelligence-driven automation is the way forward, helping organizations achieve all this. AI, aided by the findings of deep learning and machine learning algorithms, has the power to optimize business processes and be effective in any scenario.

These are how AI can help businesses.

AI to optimize sales and marketing

Many CRM solutions incorporate AI analytics to enable sales teams to generate valuable insights automatically. AI can be a boon for retailers in planning store layouts, organizing inventory, and predicting customer buying preferences.

Sales and marketing businesses can entirely rely on AI to boost their transactions, so much so that it can predict which customers are most likely to generate more revenue.

With such relevant information, salespeople can focus their time and energy on where it matters the most. Companies can depend on AI for their marketing activities by targeting ads to the exact target audience helping secure a prospective conversion.

AI in manufacturing process

The manufacturing sector has been pioneering in automation and robotics for a long time. Intelligent automation in manufacturing can let humans work together with robots and prevent accidents. It has given rise to “cobots,” or collaborative robots. AIs are affordable, easy to program, and fast to set up.

AI in recruitment

Imagine the HR department of a company peering over hundreds of job applications to zero in on the right candidate for a job. Screening them one by one would eat into resources, taking many people and too much time to do the task.

Enter AI-powered recruitment. Algorithms perform data analytics on all job applications. It can help determine and eliminate unsuitable candidates, saving time and money and removing the subjective factor in decision-making.

Unilever has cut down over 70,000 person-hours of interviewing and assessing candidates due to automated screening of candidates.

AI in content generation

AI tools can write engaging and informative copy. It can create ads, promo videos, websites, product descriptions, social media posts, white papers, flyers, etc., to improve company sales and deliver exceptional results in seconds.

E-commerce giant Alibaba has developed an AI-CopyWriter that’s capable of generating more than 20,000 lines of copy in just one second.

AI in Security

Companies must go the extra mile to safeguard data privacy. AI security systems and AI models based on Deep learning methods have proven to better detect hackers and fraud attempts.

AI in product development processes

Generative design is a cutting-edge field that uses AI to augment the creative process. Just input your design preferences, goals, requirements and let the generative design software explore all the permutation combinations of your design.

Quickly generate multiple designs from a single idea or prompt. This generative design software saves organizations many hours and the expense of creating prototypes that don’t deliver.

Conclusion

AI-powered business processes offer organizations unparalleled opportunities to optimize operations, make data-driven decisions, and drive innovation. Businesses can gain a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced digital landscape by leveraging the latest advancements in AI technologies.

AI is now booming and pretty much an omnipresent technology. Once the buzz around AI recedes, it will become as standard as yesteryear’s ERP systems or, even as common as a spreadsheet.

Companies and organizations will embed AI in business processes to re-engineer their current and existing processes. Businesses need AI to improve their daily routine. However, implementing AI-powered business processes requires careful planning, addressing challenges, and adhering to best practices.

The latest statistics, facts, and credible sources provide businesses with valuable insights to embark on a successful AI journey. Organizations with a strategic approach can harness the power of AI, unlocking efficiency and innovation that propels them toward sustainable growth and success.

Artificial Intelligence is a means to an end, not the end. Organizations that understand AI and harness it in their process engineering will get the most from AI in the long run.