History has witnessed many technological reformations - the birth of computing machines, the Internet, smartphones and social media. While we may not know what the future would hold true for us, we can predict that it may have something to do with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Artificial Intelligence, a term coined by a computer scientist John McCarthy, was based on the concepts of an English mathematician Alan Turing, often referred to as the father of modern computers. Till date, the only test that matters to verify if a machine is imitating a human or the computer itself is by checking if it is as responsive as us, also known as the 'Turing test'.

The first instance of an artificially intelligent machine was the development of chess-playing computers. One of the popular examples of such a machine was IBM's Deep Blue, which defeated the then world chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. Over a period, computers with advanced capabilities have been utilised by corporations to benefit business functions.

AI is not just a plot device for sci-fi movies but has been integrated in our lives for quite some time now. Virtual assistants have been hard at work trying to provide simple services to make our lives efficient. Utility of such AI assistants help users source information from the Internet, shop, manage our schedule, remind us of appointments, among various other things.

One valuable addition of AI is its incorporation into business functions. In telecommunication, AI can completely change marketing approaches due to its innate ability to bring the business closer to the customers.

In a region like the GCC, where smartphones and mobile Internet has near perfect penetration, AI and data analytics-driven marketing can be a useful ally for businesses. Platforms built on voice recognition and natural language understanding (NLU)/chat language understanding (CLU) can be used to identify the subscribers' preferences by the utilisation of big data analytics and artificial intelligence. The AI is now able to understand over 40 languages and utilise speech synthesis to communicate in over 80 languages from all over the world.

Customer engagement in the modern world consists of numerous touchpoints like chatbots, virtual assistants, instant messaging, IVR, mobile and the web. Handling these copious touchpoints would require a smarter, faster and scalable system. An efficient AI will utilise superior speech and language recognition capabilities, interpret the meaning of words and data and apply context and reasoning to improve from its interactions and provide improved customer experience.

Using AI and behavioural data, communication service providers (CSPs) can now ensure they present the right offer at the right time using the right channel for each subscriber. With the power of AI, CSPs can take advantage of this unique position by continuously analysing offer conversion rates, subscriber profiles, content usage and network activity, and thereby create and place offers that are tailored and relevant to each subscriber.

By becoming aware of every customer communication, AI will possess decision-making capabilities for future interactions. The platform will be able to identify the user and provide the optimum service based on their profile and relevant behaviour.

The future of AI isn't as depicted in the movies. No super intelligent AI will be taking over the planet and using humans as energy source. But, increased automation of some of the manual processes is likely. For example, in the fast food industry, complete automation may reduce contamination from human sources and AI integration by means of past behaviour can predict the order to drastically reduce turnaround time per customer. Similarly, in fields of medicine, agriculture, finance, transport, aviation and manufacturing, the utilisation of AI would have a significant impact.

Source: Khaleej Times