The Harvard Business Review published a serie of paper on Artificial Intelligence last summer. One of the article: "THE BUSINESS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: What it can — and cannot — do for your organization" caught our attention. The main themes of the paper are: the state of artificial intelligence today, understanding machine learning, differents flavors of machine learning and putting machine learning to work.
"In this second wave of the second machine age, machines built by humans are learning from examples and using structured feedback to solve on their own problems
The good news is that you do not need tons of data to start with "you may not need all that much data to start making productive use of machine learning." says Brynolfsson & McAfee.
They add: "Machine learning is driving changes at three levels: tasks and occupations, business processes, and business models."
In the section "Differents flavors of machine learning", the table presenting the different supervised learning systems can help you visualize a few application of machine learning in your business operations.
ERIK BRYNJOLFSSON & ANDREW MCAFEE's Harvard Business Review article ends on the following advice:
"The most nimble and adaptable companies and executives will thrive. Organizations that can rapidly sense and respond to opportunities will seize the advantage in the AI-enabled landscape. So the successful strategy is to be willing to experiment and learn quickly. If managers aren’t ramping up experiments in the area of machine learning, they aren’t doing their job. Over the next decade, AI won’t replace managers, but managers who use AI will replace those who don’t."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: https://hbr.org/cover-story/2017/07/the-business-of-artificial-intelligence
