Teradata AI Survey Says: Decision-Makers Are Investing in AI

Last week, we participated in the Teradata Partners Conference in Anaheim, CA. The conference talks covered a wide variety of topics, from data management to dashboards to cloud technology to data privacy.

Teradata Partners Conference Sponsor 2017_Teradata AI SurveyTeradata also had some big announcements: a new analytics platform and a recently released AI survey, titled State of Artificial Intelligence for Enterprises.

The survey interviewed 270 top decision makers in companies across the world. One of their main findings: 80% of decision makers say that they are either currently using AI technology or in the process of implementing an AI solution.

Based on this survey and others, it’s becoming clear that decision-makers are making AI investments a priority. So where do these companies see the most potential for AI technology in enterprise?

Biggest AI Potential: Automating Repetitive Tasks

2017 has seen a lot of hype around the term “AI”, so the 80% statistic wasn’t particularly surprising to me. At Yseop, we have companies that are interested in investing in AI technology, but they don’t know where to begin. This is why I found this particular question from the Teradata AI Survey interesting: “What do you see as the biggest areas of potential for AI to revolutionize your business?” The top answers were as follows:

AI Tools for Automating Repetitive Tasks

At the top of that list was automating repetitive tasks. This is presumably so companies can free up employee’s time with more high-value, creative tasks. There are a lot of technologies that can help companies reach this goal, but some are still relatively new to the market. Based on our experience, here are three types of technology that companies are using today to help automate repetitive tasks:

1. Smart Chatbots Automating Customer Interactions
   Calls and emails are often a manual task for companies, which can create a huge stress on a company’s Customer Service and sales teams. Smart chatbots are helping alleviating emails and call center volume by answering simple questions and completing simple tasks for customers. Customer Service and sales can then focus their calls and emails to customers with more unusual questions.
2. IoT and Sensors Automating Data Collection
   Data collection is becoming automatic with Internet of Things (IoT) and sensor technology. Instead of manually collecting and inputting information, companies can now use sensors to collect data automatically. This technology is becoming especially helpful for the utilities, sports, and manufacturing industries.
3. Natural Language Generation (NLG) Automating Report Writing
   Report writing is another task that takes up a lot of time for employees, having to manually interpret graphs or spreadsheets to then quickly write a report. This step can now be automated with NLG, analyzing data and writing the first draft of the report in seconds.

These are just some of the AI tools that companies are using to start automating business processes across departments. Adoption rates are going to continue to grow. With Natural Language Generation, companies are now automating the last step in the data-to-decision process. Now, companies can generate written data insights on demand using NLG, ultimately saving them time and money, all the while increasing capacity.