AI is slowly taking over our lives and people know it.
Over the past year, the percentage of people who believe AI will dramatically impact their lives in the next three to five years has increased from 60% to 66%, according to a 2023 Ipsos survey. Additionally, 52% express concerns about AI products and services, up 13 points from 2022.
According to the 2024 Artificial Intelligence Index report conducted by the Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, funding for generative AI (GenAI) has surged from 2022, increasing nearly eight-fold to $25.2 billion. Anthropic, OpenAI, Hugging Face and Inflection are among the major large companies that reported significant funding rounds.
Of course, AI is also starting to impact multiple sectors and business processes.
retail:
For the past three years, Josh Rosen, co-founder and president of Reticle AI (a division of Hotspex Media), has been active in developing, selling, and scaling his in-house developed AI tools that leverage a nuanced understanding of human emotion. Rosen notes that the technology is all the rage, and advises companies to consider two factors when adopting AI:
First, what impact will going down this path have on your business and brand? Are your organizations really developing artificial intelligence and intelligent automation? There is a difference.
LISBON, PORTUGAL – JUNE 4: Staff wearing masks serve coffee while customers buy items… [+] At Continente Lab, an AI supermarket, during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, in Lisbon, Portugal, June 4, 2021. Continente has opened Portugal’s first cashierless store, Continente Lab, as a “just take and go” mini-supermarket. More than 200 cameras and weight sensors installed in the ceiling monitor what is taken from the shelves, and payment is made automatically with a bank card at the exit. Customers with smartphones can enter the store, take what they need from the shelves or stop for a coffee, then exit through the turnstiles without having to open their wallets or put items through a scanner. (Photo by Horacio Villalobos #Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
Corbis via Getty Images
Second, what are the outputs and outcomes? AI can write thousands of lines of copy and create hundreds of versions of ads. That’s the output. What are the key business outcomes? How did your brand salience increase? Did you see an increase in store traffic, sales, brand awareness, etc.?
These factors are especially important to Rosen’s company.[humans] We make every decision based on emotion. Traditional digital buying capabilities make all brands ‘same same.’ Looking at where and how a brand shows up through an emotional lens helps brands differentiate, build mental availability, and ultimately grow.”
health care:
“Physician burnout is widespread in large part because the majority of doctors’ time is spent using computers rather than interacting with patients. Over the past year, we’ve heard more and more doctors are excited about the potential of AI to help solve this problem,” said Vince Hartman, co-founder and CEO of Abstract Health.
Hartman has worked in healthcare technology for over 15 years, founding the medical record summarization startup GenAI and publishing three papers in the field.
“GenAI is helping advance healthcare by automating workflows such as patient summaries, radiology reports, patient messaging, billing, and speech-to-text transcription of physician conversations. The goal of all these solutions is to remove the administrative burden currently placed on physicians so they can refocus on what got them into medicine in the first place: caring for patients,” he said.
Berlin, June 19, 2023: A radiologist at the Anforkrankenhaus Berlin examines a patient’s brain image. [+] AI-based app on a tablet. Unfallkrankenhaus Berlin wants to expand its use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the future to provide faster care for acute stroke patients. (To dpa: “Unfallkrankenhaus wants to improve patient care through AI”) Photo: Monika Skolimowska/dpa (Photo: Monika Skolimowska/picture alliance via Getty Images)
dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
Navina co-founder and CEO Ronen Lavi acknowledges that the impact of AI in primary care is “enormous.” AI solutions can distill vast amounts of medical information into clear, actionable insights, reducing the administrative burden on healthcare providers. But that’s not all AI can do for healthcare.
“[T]This isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about empowering physicians to provide patients with much more personalized, clinically informed care and predicting patient issues before they become severe. This proactive approach to healthcare is where I see AI creating lasting change,” said Lavi. “By enabling personalized care and earlier intervention, AI supports the principles of value-based care, which prioritizes patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness, ultimately leading to better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs.”
employment:
Julian S. Newman, founder and CEO of FutureCast Foundation, advocates for the use of AI in HR work as most HR professionals are working beyond their usual capacity.
“‘Smart recruiting’ isn’t just smart. It’s necessary,” he said. “Smart recruiting analyzes and synthesizes resumes and applications in seconds, allowing recruiters to engage with candidates on a more human level. In recruiting, smart recruiting allows you to cast a wider candidate net and analyze trends among both applicants and recruiters.”
AI can also mask age, demographic, gender and race data if necessary, allowing recruiters and hiring teams to “see behind the paperwork” and focus on skillsets and talent.
“Smart recruiting refines the hiring process, allowing companies a more comprehensive path to find the right candidates,” says Newman. “In both the hiring and onboarding processes, ‘smart’ methodologies can assess competencies, opportunity areas, and create professional development paths for new hires. Minimizing hiring mismatches due to disorganized hiring processes reduces employee turnover.”
education:
Elissa Levy, a physics teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools, has been incorporating AI into her teaching practice for several years and hosts teacher workshops on machine learning. Over the past year, she has joined a group of Fairfax County teachers collaborating on AI practices in the classroom and co-created professional development materials for teachers on AI.
“High school students have a variety of teachers who each think differently about AI in the classroom, so naturally students feel confused and unsure of when the ‘right’ and when the ‘wrong’ way to do things,” Levy says. “Technology is evolving so quickly that it’s challenging for education leaders to craft the right policies that work for everyone and don’t have unintended negative effects. So it will likely be a while before high school students have consistent AI-related experiences across all classes.”
As tools are developed, Levy hopes to help adults and children alike learn and navigate this new world. In her physics classes, students are tasked with solving physics problems and writing lab reports by having to critique the output of large language models. They are guided to think about the limitations and strengths of AI, and “can learn to use AI to augment the brain, not as a replacement for the brain.”
