Earlier this year we wrote about x.ai and their ambitious goal of building a smart digital assistant that could automate the scheduling of complex meetings just by using natural language. At the time, we envisioned a world where we’d no longer be faced with “mind-numbing tasks that rob us of time and sap our creative energy.” We are now one step closer to living in that world.

Today, x.ai is launching its Professional edition. The meeting scheduling service is x.ai’s first paid product, available for a monthly $39 subscription fee, and marks a significant milestone for artificial intelligence in the enterprise.

As x.ai’s CEO and founder Dennis Mortensen noted during our February interview, true intelligent assistance requires specialized AI that can deal with the gnarly aspects of narrowly focused, difficult tasks. X.ai’s machine learning algorithms have now matured to the point where they’ve mastered the huge challenges associated with correctly understanding the vagaries of human language as it relates to scheduling meetings.

The implications of x.ai’s announcement are twofold. The advent of specialized AI capable of dealing with the end-to-end task of scheduling meetings means that any business, no matter how small, can now benefit from having a personal administrative assistant.

Networking with others and engaging with them in structured meetings is the lifeblood of businesses and the fuel that helps them grow and thrive. Setting up meetings is incredibly complex and time-consuming, especially as the number of participants grows and people’s schedules become tighter. By democratizing access to a master meeting scheduler, x.ai is suddenly giving every business owner the same advantage that only large enterprises can afford. Machine learning has now broken through the barriers that once severely hampered business growth.

The second implication of the x.ai announcement is that we are on the cusp of a massive shift in how human labor will be used. X.ai’s Professional Edition is one of the first of what is sure to become a steady stream of services that leverage artificial intelligence to automate repetitive administrative tasks previously delegated to human beings. In corporate enterprises, for example, administrative talent proficient at scheduling meetings is often tapped to book employee travel and update corporate travel systems. But travel booking has already become largely automated as well.

As businesses leverage intelligent assistance to reduce operational costs and better serve customers and employees, we’ll need to think creatively about how to re-engage those people whose tasks are automated by machine intelligence. At first glance this may present a challenge, but it also represents a tremendous opportunity.

The hype surrounding artificial intelligence and machine learning is starting to evolve into tangible products with significant benefits. X.ai’s launch of their first paid product shows that the hype hasn’t been unfounded.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles

Tags: machine learning, intelligent assistant, x.ai, Artificial Intelligence