When you think of #artificialintelligence, what do you envision?
Well, interpretations of artificial intelligence, or #AI, have changed over time. In science fiction books and films, they have either been perceived as hostile machines attempting to take over the world or a loyal companion on a journey to find humanity. The AI may have morals, have morals but then ditch them, or simply lack them altogether.
Therefore, some people have expected AI to resemble that of science fiction. While AI is no longer fantasy, these days its appearance is often less extravagant than what has been anticipated.
Innovations have often been so incremental and subtle that they have easily been incorporated into our daily routines. Sometimes without us noticing.
Here are four ways they are appearing in our communications.
Speech Recognition
Scientists are on a mission to make speech recognition more accurate. For instance, in August of 2017, #Microsoft announced that its speech and dialog research group reached an industry milestone with its #speechrecognition system. It’s team reached a 5.1 percent error rate. This meant it could recognize words taking place in a conversation at the same level of accuracy as human transcribers.
#Voicerecognition has become more popular these days thanks to innovations to smartphones, like IPhone 4S, and voice-activated devices, like #Alexa and #Cortana. The IPhone 4S introduced to its intelligent and resourceful personal assistant #Siri who appears with the press of a button responding to inquiries and requests. Voice-activated devices, like Alexa and Cortana, often sit atop counters in people’s homes and respond to voice commands, such as requests to order pizza, change the channel, and play music.
Some business offices have been slightly apprehensive when it comes to adopting voice-activated devices. However, other businesses have used the voice-enabled systems in their offices with the help of apps. The systems have been used to create to-do list, add items to calendars, book conference calls, turn lights on and off, adjust thermostats, open and close documents, presentations and spreadsheets; cue up phone calls in voice and send text messages; and read notifications. According to Realtor magazine, organizations can even hire a developer to create a skill, such as answering a set of questions about your organization while at a tradeshow.
Daily business transactions, such as making travel reservations, and talking with customer service representatives have been occurring with the use of computers. However, in the near future, the conversations with the AI technologies will not only become more accurate, but the interactions will be more personalized even to the point that you will barely notice that you are talking to a computer.
Collaborative Workplace Communication Platforms
In the workplace missing a message about a meeting or a report can be costly. These days messages are coming from several different platforms, sending and receiving messages have included letters, phones, emails and social media. This is one of the reasons why more #collaborativeplatforms have been established. The platforms make sure both external and internal messages are shared in one place. Providers of workplace communication platforms have aggregated apps from different channels to make it possible to communicate at any time and place, and they’ve filtered messages so they can be sent to the right teams.
At this point, providers of these collaborative platforms are simply making connections between the capabilities of their platform and the possibilities of machine learning. Some of them are incorporating AI and chatbots. (A #chatbot is a program that uses rules to conduct interactions, like conversations, using either audio or text. In fact, they’ve been called “the new apps.”) Including AI chatbots can make the platform's offerings more intelligent and the workflows and conversations easier.
One way, this is occurring is through partnerships with tech startups. For example, #Cisco acquired the tech startup #MindMeld. MindMeld has an AI platform dedicated to making conversational interfaces, such as messaging, more realistic in applications and devices. It has used machine learning to improve interactions with voice and chat assistants. Cisco plans to leverage the technology in its #Spark collaboration platform.
One of Spark’s main features is its touch-screen panel. The panel is where workers can present and illustrate their thoughts. It’s also a place where video and conference calls are made. Spark also integrates with other business applications like Salesforce.
The MindMeld technology will help Cisco “bring voice AI and natural language commands to the enterprise meeting room,” according to ComputerWeekly. Slack, which launched in 2014, is among the fastest growing workplace collaboration platforms. In the Spring of 2017, Slack announced that it added a new search feature that uses machine-learning technology to identify the most relevant people and channels based on the topic that a person has queried.
Social Media
AI technology is already showing up on social media platforms.
Think about how you tag a friend in a photo on Facebook. The company has used AI technologies to identify that person. Facebook is also using AI technologies alongside human moderators to find content that violates its terms of use and to identify extremist groups.
Twitter recently used its AI technologies to weed out as many as 300,000 terrorist-related accounts. The company also announced in the Spring of 2017 that it purchased Magic Pony Technology, a machine-learning startup, to enhance users’ experiences, especially in the area of video.
The London-based data company, #Twizzo uses AI technologies to identify user-generated content on social media and then puts the content on brands’ webpages.
These days users of social media are more likely to engage in posts with photos, and each day billions of photographs are uploaded and shared on platforms, like Instagram and Snapchat. These platforms have risen in popularity, especially among #GenerationZ, which is a demographic that is starting to enter the workforce.
Many of the photos posted to social media contain images about products like shoes and electronics. The posts may contain a request asking how to locate the item, or an individual may discuss how the item may have impacted their daily routine. Some marketers may have felt that they have been missing out on leveraging this information, but now AI-image recognition tools are making it possible for companies to find and identify their products all across social media in images, and in some cases, video.
#Email is among the most productive platforms in the workplace and artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies helping to improve how emails are sent and received.
Email plugins that use the AI and machine learning technologies are helping to guide email responses by analyzing emails, determining the chances of a response and improving the messages. For example, Google’s AI-powered #SmartReply creates email responses based on the contents of an incoming message. It predicts the likely response.
#Emailmarketers are more able to quickly identify trends and make predictions when conducting multivariate and A/B tests. AI is helping to determine subject lines and a call to action; and machine learning is figuring out when an email recipient is more likely to view their inbox.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are being integrated into everyday communications. These technologies are aiding decision-making with real-time suggestions and task management. They are also freeing up time for workers so they can focus more on other items of importance.
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