Breakthroughs in emerging technologies are transforming everyday life and business at a rapid rate. In fact, economists have taken to calling the era we live in “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Of these emerging technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) has had the biggest impact on business. Strategies such as supply and demand optimization, customer service personalization and the automation of everyday tasks such as bookkeeping have made businesses more efficient.
How AI Saved a Harley-Davison Dealership
Consider the case of Harley-Davison of New York City. The venerable brand’s flagship operation is located in an enormous showroom in the trendy Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca.
Harley-Davison is one of the most iconic brands in the U.S. with an immensely loyal following; and yet throughout much of 2016 and 2017, the dealership was only selling one or two motorcycles a week.
In just one weekend after the dealership began using an AI-driven marketing solution, 15 motorcycles were sold. This wasn’t a fluke, either. The high sales continued.
The AI tool had been able to analyze existing customer data to predict those marketing strategies that were most likely to convert high-value prospective customers into buyers.
In other words, the AI proved to be a wildly successful leads generator. In just three months, the AI was able to increase Harley New York’s qualified leads by 2,930 per cent.
The Many Ways AI Enhances Marketing
AI has become the silent partner in boardrooms across the nation.
Entertainment sites like Netflix and Spotify use AI to figure out what you want to watch or listen to next. An AI will be giving you style tips when you’re looking for that perfect-fitting pair of jeans on the Levi site. Disney will soon be using AI to determine just what story that cuddly toy should tell your child at bedtime.
AI-powered chatbots are in the process of revolutionizing the customer service business. Electronic neural networks have become so lifelike that nearly one-third of human customers seeking product support through a website helpline are unaware that the representative they’re talking to is actually a bot. Some experts are predicting that within the next few years, 85 per cent of all customer service interactions will be performed by chatbots.
AI Helps with Data Overload
One of the reasons artificial intelligence has been so embraced by the mainstream is because it’s efficient in dealing with the increasingly large streams of data that go hand-in-hand with contemporary life.
Groundbreaking software like Botkeeper, for example, uses advanced automation to perform bookkeeping tasks more accurately and less expensively than a human bookkeeper might.
Botkeeper CEO Enrico Palmerino describes this process as “augmented intelligence” since it also involves the oversight of expert accountants.
Solutions like Botkeeper release business owners from tedious tasks and frees them to attend more closely to their business’s underlying value proposition.
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