As the familiar adage goes, “Time is money.” By instantly analyzing digital data, artificial intelligence models can help organizations save money—and boost operational efficiency, develop more compelling marketing campaigns, provide a better customer experience and more—all in real time.
From uncovering hidden insights to helping humans maximize their creativity, AI is a powerful tool that can support ideation, research and more, as well as streamline and support the everyday workflows of professionals across focuses and industries. Here, members of Forbes Technology Council discuss just a few of the practical, real-time benefits organizations can realize from AI.
1. Overcoming Bias
AI can help founders and company leaders overcome human biases related to age, gender, background or appearance. Like an objective mentor, AI pushes us to make smarter decisions and think outside the box, and it provides data-driven insights at any time. Besides, AI can inspire us to dream bigger and offer emotional support. It depends on the questions we ask and the ambitions we have. – Alina Mikay, AboutMe Apps, Inc.
2. Suggesting Efficiency Improvements
AI can take the vast lake of data that manufacturing and other process-intensive industries pull from machines, users, power bills and more and suggest ways to improve efficiency. It can even guide companies in doing such things as cutting emissions or optimizing staff workflows. – Simon Dae Oong Kim, Glassdome Inc.
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3. Making Faster, More Informed Clinical Decisions
In acute care hospitals, clinicians face the constant challenge of processing vast amounts of ever-changing patient data. AI, whether predictive or generative, empowers clinical teams to make faster, more informed decisions in real time, ultimately enhancing the quality of patient care and supporting optimal outcomes. – Heather Bassett, Xsolis
4. Analyzing Component Designs
In the context of deep-tech hardware development, AI can deliver real-time insights into and design analysis of subcomponents in terms of their resilience when operating in their intended environments (for example, how well they’ll handle physical force, exposure to radiation or temperature extremes). AI can both flag issues and suggest material or design improvements, enabling companies to quickly address problems, streamline iterations and reduce costs. – Thomas Santini, Lodestar Space Ltd.
5. Prompting Decision Makers To Ask The Right Questions
We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, with AI accelerating our access to it. But information alone isn’t wisdom. The real value AI offers isn’t just providing answers—it’s prompting leaders to ask the right questions. AI can guide leaders to the pivotal questions that enable them to make informed, forward-thinking decisions with their teams. – Hunter McMahon, iDiscovery Solutions, Inc. (iDS)
6. Providing Customer Sentiment Analysis
AI can provide a company with real-time customer sentiment analysis that leverages all interaction channels. A company can use this to proactively manage its reputation, identify trends and adjust its customer service, marketing or product development strategies, leading to a better customer experience. AI enables businesses to act on customer feedback instantly, driving responsive and customer-centric operations. – Navdeep Singh, Comcast NBCUniversal
7. Predicting Customer Churn
Predicting customer churn and risks during engagements is something AI can provide companies in real time. With the advances in generative AI, companies are moving away from conventional conversational bots to conversational agents. These agents can predict churn and risks to help companies address customer concerns effectively. – Yohan Liyanage, Altrium
8. Presenting Visual Marketing Demonstrations
AI can present consumers with visual representations or demonstrations of products they’re interested in, which is a much better marketing strategy than traditional methods. This can lead to a significant boost in sales by enabling customers to visualize products and make purchases with a simple click. – Bhavna Juneja, Infinity, a Stamford Technology Company
9. Mapping Compliance Artifacts To Current Standards And Obligations
With cyberthreats, third-party risk and compliance failures on the rise, companies must identify gaps in their controls relative to internal compliance standards and obligations. AI can quickly map regulations, rules, laws and standards to internal compliance artifacts, such as policies, procedures and controls, while also providing actionable advice on closing gaps and reducing risk. – Venky Yerrapotu, 4CRisk.ai
10. Validating Hypotheses
It’s best practice to use at least two different tools to validate your hypotheses. By doing so, you can cut out the need for consulting companies. In most cases, you are standing at the crossroads with your development and growth challenges. – Agur Jõgi, Pipedrive
11. Adjusting Marketing Activities In Flight
AI’s ability to provide real-time insights to adjust in-flight marketing activities is immensely beneficial for marketers. By aggregating and analyzing data, providing recommendations on where to shift funds and focus, sharing insights at the customer level, and guiding the creation of new content based on customer preferences, AI can help marketers maximize their efforts and provide a much better customer experience. – Matthew Lieberman, PwC
12. Guiding Dental Procedures
In the world of dental implant surgery, AI-driven technologies are invaluable. For example, I use facial recognition, photogrammetry and hands-free ChatGPT applications all day, every day. These clinical AI applications guide my hands in positioning implants precisely, even in extremely difficult places. The takeaway is that AI creates better and safer outcomes for my patients. – Mark Whitefield, Implant Evolution
13. Forecasting Energy Demand
In the energy markets, which affect everyone, AI can help forecast periods where electricity prices, emissions intensities and demand are above various thresholds. These forecasts can help organizations maximize profits from their assets’ operations. This capability can be applied across various market participants, including loads, generators and even prosumers. – Alvaro Rozo, Arcus Power Corp.
14. Centralizing Data From Multiple Sources
AI delivers a 360-degree view of key performance indicators by centralizing real-time data from multiple sources. This unified insight allows decision makers to spot trends, address issues swiftly and make informed choices. With real-time insights, companies can stay agile, keep teams aligned and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market. – Daniel Fallmann, Mindbreeze
15. Optimizing Pricing Policies
AI can transform pricing optimization by analyzing real-time sales data and market conditions. The ability to simultaneously evaluate distributor data, pricing performance and demand signals empowers companies to dynamically adjust pricing across market segments to maximize profitability. – Suresh Kannan, Model N
16. Researching Market Intelligence
Among the most valuable real-time insights AI is able to provide is 360-degree market intelligence across multiple categories. Instead of spending days manually researching news and reports, procurement teams can access comprehensive market insights on demand. Combining external market data with internal spending and supplier information creates actionable intelligence. – Alex Saric, Ivalua
17. Anticipating Customers’ Needs
AI gives companies the ability to understand and anticipate customer needs in real time, enabling customer service teams to deliver personalized, contextually aware responses. By instantly analyzing past interactions and customer data, AI voice agents accelerate response times, strengthen relationships and proactively address issues, creating seamless service that keeps customers satisfied and loyal. – Lyle Pratt, Vida
18. Showing What’s Not Working In Marketing Campaigns
AI can answer one of the most important real-time questions for marketing teams: What isn’t working? AI can analyze data and trends in real time to show you which channels aren’t performing well or which relevant customer segments are being missed. Those insights allow for fast optimizations and ensure marketing spend is having maximum impact. – Raj De Datta, Bloomreach
19. Quickly Resolving Customer Service Calls
Can you tell ahead of time why a customer is calling? What about pinpointing the solutions you can offer even before someone answers the call? AI can do these things by looking at past transactions, social media posts by clients, past emails and texts, and so on. While knowing the issue before you answer is powerful, knowing the solution can increase first-call resolutions and improve client satisfaction and retention. – Syam Adusumilli, GroundGame Health
20. Boosting Employee Productivity
AI can offer valuable insights into employee productivity, supporting a range of strategic decisions such as long-term company planning and identifying the ideal team composition. This data also informs tactical decisions, like day-to-day staff allocation, and can even play a role in performance management. Ultimately, data becomes a crucial factor in leaders’ decision-making processes. – Deepak Tiwari, Ernst & Young
