Page 5 - AeM_July_2017

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

business and marketing outcomes and delivers true ‘Amplifying Human Potential: Towards Purposeful Artifi-
personalization at scale, is fundamental to successful cial Intelligence’ substantiates that the automation of
mainstream adoption. Also, business decision makers big-data processes and predictive and prescriptive ana-
who realize the low-risk, high-return nature of AI mar- lytics are currently the most frequently used AI applica-
keting, as well as how to prepare their organizations for tions in companies and are also increasingly used in
it, will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.” marketing, sales and service. However, AI is still much
more used in the IT department, followed by operations
Intelligent marketing tools and business development and only then used by mar-
keting and customer service (around 30%).
Without doubt, AI will change many things in the busi-
ness world, especially CRM. Interestingly, Infosys’s study revealed a clear link be-
tween the turnover of a company and its degree of AI.
The new IDC study ‘Economic Impact of AI on CRM’ by Organizations that have been able to show greater
Salesforce expects as well that AI will bring more effi- growth over the last three years usually also had a
ciency and revenue growth. In fact, IDC believes that higher AI degree. hence, AI could also be seen as a
the year 2018 will mark a milestone in the use of AI long-term strategic priority for innovation: For 76% of
technologies, as a large proportion of the surveyed the interviewees, AI has been fundamental to the suc-
companies intends to implement AI solutions in the next cess of its corporate strategy and 64% are convinced
two years. The global market intelligence firm even pre- that the future of their company depends on a large-
dicts that by the end of 2018, approximately 75% of all scale adaptation of the AI technology.
enterprises will use AI or machine-learning functionali-
ties in at least one application. AI-based CRM activities However, only one out of ten respondents already us-
will cover a wide range of applications, addressing virtu- ing AI technologies believes their company exploits the
ally all facets of a business, including accelerating sales full available capacity of AI. A majority of 90% reported
cycles, improving lead generation and quality, market- that their employees are faced with challenges or con-
ing campaigns and reducing costs for support calls. cerns when it comes to using AI. Approximately four in
ten respondents also believe that implementation, ease
-of-use and interoperability with other systems and plat-
Exploring new shores
forms must be improved before AI technology can be
used effectively. ◊
In a nutshell, AI is clearly no longer just a matter for the
By Daniela La Marca
IT department, as AI-based solutions will make their
way into all departments. Infosys's international study

MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd - Independant ePublisher for Asia