The views expressed by the business participants are their own.
It’s hard to miss the hype surrounding artificial intelligence.
Many companies are investing in productive AI – up to $150 billion, according to Sequoia Capital’s estimate – because they are afraid of being left behind. At the same time, many are paralyzed by the fear that productive AI innovation could damage their reputation. So, what should innovators, business leaders and investors know and do about these AI developments, in order to capitalize and ensure that their investment in the space proves worthwhile?
There are two major industries – retail and healthcare – that are rolling out productive AI applications that seem to create a huge amount of compelling potential that can provide insights for others to use.
As an associate professor of management processes at Babson College with a background that includes working on early AI during my time at MIT and authoring three books on the dot-com boom, I have a deep understanding of technological waves and their economic impact. I was inspired to explore this latest wave of technology and the fundamental shift in the landscape of AI in my latest book, Brain Rush: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Internet Business.
It is clear that everyone should try using an AI chatbot, such as ChatGPT, to overcome the fear and learn how it can help them even when it doesn’t work well. But, will the benefits of AI-generated services make customers eager to buy them at a premium price? It’s too early to know, of course.
Based on investments made by retail and healthcare companies in productive AI systems, here are the first insights from founders, business leaders and investors across other industries to start capitalizing on the AI boom.
Related: How a $10,000 Investment in AI Transformed My Career and Business Strategy
Create new growth curves
Marketers aim to use productive AI to attract and retain consumers. The 2024 Google Cloud report found that 50% of marketers surveyed were starting customer service automation programs with “25% of respondents evaluating these programs and 22% already using them.”
While marketers are experimenting with other productive AI applications, here are two that have the greatest potential to attract and retain buyers:
- Hyper-personalization. AI can allow retailers to create digital flyers that inform shoppers of the best weekly deals based on their previous purchases. An evaluation of those retailer’s digital flyers found evidence of greater customer engagement – notably a 14% higher loyalty program sign-up rate, a 100% increase in click-through rates and “a 2% to 5% overall increase in store sales, according to Oliver Wyman Forum.
- Improved customer service. Consumers prefer AI-powered customer service agents because they are available around the clock and reduce call waiting times, notes Oliver Wyman. Generative AI could increase productivity in the packaged goods and consumer goods industry by “up to 2% of annual revenue – an additional $400 billion to $660 billion,” according to the report. Brain Rush.
A highly customized digital brochure offers the prospect of generating a return on investment because it can accelerate growth. However, it remains to be seen whether retailers will significantly accelerate their revenue before the cost of providing these digital flyers.
Related: 3 Big Mistakes Companies Make With AI That Reduce Their ROI
Increase productivity
Healthcare providers are under pressure to accomplish more with fewer resources while improving the quality of patient care. Providers are using productive AI to simplify administrative tasks, such as answering patient questions and scheduling appointments, automatically transcribing patient conversations with healthcare providers, streamlining patient consent forms and helping doctors screen patients.
Two such applications stand out for their potential to create value:
- Better information faster and less expensive. During the pandemic, patients were trying to get information about Covid-19. Healthcare providers struggle to recruit and attract sufficient staff to meet patient demand for such information. To solve this problem, healthcare providers want to shift the work from call center staff to patient self-service. Contra Costa Health Care, a California-based healthcare provider, used an AI-powered healthcare assistant to divert 80% of customer calls to its AI, saving $20 per call that Contra Costa would have had to pay to an outside contractor. This freed up Contra Costa staff time to respond to other calls more quickly, improving the patient experience, it noted. Brain Rush.
- Extra attention, personal service. When doctors meet with patients, they usually record the conversation on the computer. For both the patient and the doctor, typing is somewhat inconvenient. There is a risk that while typing the doctor will miss the emotional signs from the patients’ faces that may lead to important follow-up questions from the doctor. In addition, as they ask questions and listen to the patient’s answers, doctors may not type everything they hear into the computer. To solve these problems, the University of Kansas Health System made an AI-based productivity tool available to doctors. AI has reduced the time more than 2,000 doctors and other medical staff spend on notes. AI has created summaries of medical conversations from audio recorded during patient visits, reducing the more than two hours doctors typically spend on notes every day, according to Brain Rush.
While there is much to gain from early AI investments, these two industries are setting a good example by trying to find productive AI uses that create customer value and may promise to generate returns.
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