Today, The Wall Street Journal published a CIO Network supplement containing insightful interviews with business luminaries. The front page of the print version features Scott Austin’s interview with Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Chinese Internet giant Baidu and co-founder of education start-up Coursera and Neil Jacobstein, chair of artificial intelligence and robotics department at Silicon Valley think tank Singularity University.

Both Ng and Jacobstein are enthusiastic about the future possibilities of artificial intelligence. In the interview, they each offer perspectives that might be useful for CIOs and others involved in setting technical strategies for their business. While they speak at a high level for the higher echelons of the corporate ladder, there are implications for departments heads and business unit administrators in customer care and digital commerce domains. Here are a few takeaways:

Speech Recognition is Here and It’s Here to Stay
Baidu bet heavily on speech recognition a few years ago, as they felt it was on the verge of moving from a 95% to a 99% accuracy rate. As Ng sees it, that 5% improvement, though it may seem small, translates into the difference between almost no one using the technology to nearly everyone using it. Ng states that over the past year they’ve witnessed 100% year-over-year growth in daily use of speech recognition across all their products and services.

Machine Learning Is Staged to Power Smart AI Advisors
Jacobstein believes that advances in machine learning have reached a point where they’re producing truly revolutionary applications. He cites the example of Libratus, a poker playing system developed at Carnegie Mellon University. The system played over 100 thousand hands of poker against human world champions and ended up amassing $1.77 million in winnings. What makes the success of the poker playing system remarkable is that in poker, a player must deal with incomplete information, bluff opponents, and assess how to interpret competitors’ bluffs. Jacobstein suggests that these skills could be applied by an AI-powered agent to lead negotiations, develop strategy, or possibly carry out policy analysis.

Companies Can Benefit from a Consistent Approach to AI
Artificial intelligence is critical to the future of today’s companies. The challenge for organizations is that people skilled in developing and using machine learning are in high demand. Ng suggests that organizations appoint a chief AI officer or VP to provide consistency in the corporate approach to hiring, promotion, and management standards. He stresses that it’s still important for the AI team to work in a cross-functional manner to ensure no business units are left out of the shift to AI.

Process Automation is the Next Big Thing
When asked what types of jobs can be automated, Ng responded that just about any task a human can do with less than one minute of mental effort is a good candidate for automation. At first glance, that description seems to leave out the vast majority of what the typical job entails. But Ng points out that lots of jobs are accomplished by stringing together tasks that only take a second of thought.

Jacobstein believes that a wave of automation will sweep through industries faster than most people are expecting. While the forward progress of automation promises huge opportunities for businesses, there will almost certainly be a resulting disruption in the job market. Ng sees a bright future of newly created jobs, but people need to start preparing themselves for these new opportunities, which may require a completely different set of skills.

It is a given that businesses are going to press forward with their efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence into their ongoing digital transformation strategy. Opus Research will continue to frame our core concept of “Intelligent Assistance” (IA) as the consumption model by which we humans (both employees and customers) put AI to use on our own behalf. The rapidly approaching “wave of automation” defined in the interview is destined to be diffused by levels of confusion and hype surrounding the capabilities of machines to recognize intent, learn from mistakes and react to emotions and feelings.

Customer care professionals and their counterparts in marketing and digital commerce are among the first individuals to evaluate and define where and how AI can best be implemented to improve the personal experiences and human engagement. It is a dynamic domain that deserves constant discussion.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, AI, intelligent Assistants, Andrew Ng, Robotics