Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a popular subject in the business world, creating a mixture of concern and excitement. In this blog, we explore the world of AI, its benefits, and its impact on the business industry.
By April Baniqued. Published 19 July 2024.
McKinsey’s 2024 Global Survey found that 65% of organisations regularly use generative AI (GenAI). With its growing use in the business world, understanding AI is becoming necessary. Our Head of Computer Science, Dr Paul Sant, and Business School Lecturer, Juan Duran share their thoughts about the opportunities and risks AI poses to the industry, and the skills that might be beneficial if you're looking at a future in business.
What are the concerns of using AI?
Like with any new technology, there are speculations and uncertainties around AI. Here are a few of the concerns:
Paul:
“The key concerns are how they can leverage the potential of AI without any commercially sensitive or personal customer data being exposed/available to others. In this sense, many are developing their own ‘sandbox’ or ‘defined’ models for analysing their data that only they have access to. Another key concern is related to the cost associated with using AI.”
Juan:
“AI brings to businesses many interesting questions: How does it really work and how can we interpret the results of AI? How is it impacting my employees? Are there any copyright issues? How is information being used?”
What are the benefits of using AI?
Other businesses are fully embracing and utilising AI’s abilities to improve business operations. Benefits include:
Paul:
“Better efficiency, greater insight that would take a human a long time to identify compared to an AI solution, and the ability to do tasks that were not possible before. One key use of AI is around opening up new market opportunities, leading to potential growth and further success. It’s finding that ‘needle in a haystack’ quickly and not losing out to competitors.”
Juan:
“AI is ready to be used, may it be implementing a large project in your company, or just to produce a document or create an image for your project.
AI is currently being used in major banks to complement and even replace traditional statistical tools used to predict future customer behaviour, combat fraud, calculate capital allocation for risk and create forecasts and reports in many regulatory areas.”
How will AI change traditional business models?
Juan:
“AI will change traditional business models, for example replacing some of the typical entry-level jobs, but also introducing new powerful analytics tools that will replace older ones, as it is currently happening with AI replacing classical statistics.”
What AI skills are helpful to learn?
Paul:
“Using tools for analysing data (e.g data analysis), use of AI tools in marketing and customer experience (e.g. chatbots), through to being able to use commonplace generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini in a business context – and this is just the tip of the iceberg!”
Why should students learn about AI for business?
Paul:
“AI is going to become increasingly part of the workplace, from using it as part of general activities (e.g. using Co-Pilot to help provide insight in reports and presentations) to using it to manage standard customer complaints through online chatbots. Knowing your customer and how they engage with AI will also allow you to further personalise their experience.”
Juan:
“To use AI, companies will need to train and upskill their workforce. But what about the people who will never be hired because AI has replaced them, taking over their jobs? Students learning AI will be better suited to face this challenge as candidates to work in an AI-empowered environment.”
To keep up with the changing times, we are launching our MSc Artificial Intelligence for Business course, which can help you understand the developments of AI and apply relevant AI tools, giving you a competitive advantage in the business job market.
