There is a lot of noise in the world regarding AI and its impressive (and sometimes scary) potential. I’ve heard crazy things like AI replacing your doctor and the creation of cyborgs. While I respect the possibilities – I think both of these are a little out there at this point.
Like most organizations, we have invested resources on how we might best use AI internally in our work and externally with our clients. It has shown us where we can achieve some improvements – and its limitations at this stage of its development.
When you look beyond the noise, it has the feel of being the latest innovation of some tools that have been around for a bit – like Google (searching), Grammarly (form), and Asset Advantage (results). The common denominator among these is that if the underlying data is wrong, there is no value in any of the results.
It’s all about the quality of the data.
Our entire focus at HL Group is collecting the right data in a timely and trustworthy manner for our client’s use. AI has the potential to extend the value of that captured data.
Leveraging AI-type querying against the data captured, or even in deciding what data to focus on, may be a real game-changer. It will prove a quicker and more flexible tool for many uses of the information managed by mobilePLUS.
AI will take a solution that already has a rapid ROI – and make it stronger.
What AI can’t do is the actual source data harvesting efforts to ensure its results are the best available. It can only present what has already been published.
The asset and item information we collect requires some level of human action and direction – even when RFID and similar capture technologies are in use.
There will always be a level of human interaction necessary with AI – whether on the back end for eventual decisions or from the start to define the data needed.
Where it can play an increasingly valuable role is “between” the sourcing and use.
With my industrial background, I see AI bringing that same level of value into the services community that similar technology advances did for the supply chain sector – such as speeding up and improving those repetitive tasks with better results.
We will be publishing a few additional Posts over the next few weeks on AI and its role and benefits for our markets. We appreciate the possibilities it offers in improving the value of mobilePLUS and similar data collection-styled applications.
(Much) Later, we can talk about replacing doctors and cyborgs running the world!
