Forget killer bots plotting our demise. Collabware CEO Graham Sibley explained that the way Artificial Intelligence (AI) runs is incredibly simple and when properly utilized, can help organizations save money and allow employees to work more productively.
Spoiler alert: AI is programming an algorithm to answer questions with a YES or NO, which automates and streamlines day-to-day tasks. But more on that below.
Daunting as it may seem, Graham stated that AI is simply teaching machines to learn so they can make decisions. To express the intelligence and makes decisions our brain normally would.
The basic concept of how AI works is Yes-No decision making. This process can be broken down into three steps:
Sounds too easy to be true? It really is that straightforward.
While AI appears to be extremely intelligent at times, the truth is that each and every basic fundamental building block is based on whether yes or no is determined. In this way, the reality is less 'planet destroying robots' and more like our old friend Clippy (pictured to your right, remember him?) who is programmed in a way that can help us at work.
As for what AI exists today, two categories were listed in the presentation:
This category can be used for exchanges with AI for tips, locations, info bits. Think Alexa or Siri.
Graham also spoke on algorithms, providing definitions of decision trees and clustering/similarity. As a bonus here, we’ve done you a solid and listed out basic descriptions for all of the types listed during the tech talk!
Algorithms are the step-by-step procedures, or set of instructions, that AI use to perform analysis against criteria before making its YES or NO decision.
There are many types of algorithms, including:
And more! See the end of this blog post for more information.*
So you might be thinking: Okay, great. But implementing AI at my office? Why is that necessary?
Graham included this quote to bring some insight:
"Every two days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003"
-Eric Schmidt
The current volume of information out there is literally in-comprehensible to human beings. Try to imagine for a moment, sorting through a years' worth of work-related files and documents on the devices of employees throughout your organization. Overwhelming is an understatement.
The solution? As Graham said in his presentation, "we need to get to the point where machines can express the intelligence our brain can express so that it can do that [overwhelming] work for us."
The value of using AI in your organization? Graham listed these following three examples:
Incorporating artificial intelligence into documentation operations can result in major ROI. For example, AI-based automated filing can save 3.5 minutes per document once deployed, which is a 900K investment for a 2,850,000 dollar ROI over 3 years.
Graham also provided the example of a multinational grocery retailer unlocking new value from existing content through pattern analysis. In this case, the retailer used AI in order to learn that they spent a lot on cooling, and used that information to save twenty million dollars that year via cooling reduction.
Graham's tech talk included the following four factors to consider when trying to adopt AI:
The workings of artificial intelligence are actually quite simple (programming machines to make yes-no decisions), and can be utilized in a way that makes your organization’s documentation and information management less daunting.
We've got the entire PowerPoint presentation available below. Want to learn how to implement AI for your information management? We've got a free whitepaper on that, also available below! We have also written all about how content enrichment uses AI, machine learning and more to bring value to your organizational processes. Feel free to contact our team with any questions, our focus is on providing solutions and services to help organizations overcome information chaos and gain valuable insights from their stored data.
To see the entire PowerPoint Presentation, click here to download a printable PDF:
*To learn more about algorithm types, check out this Tour of Machine Learning Algorithms by Machine Learning Mastery.