The Hype Cycle

We're at the peak of the Hype Cycle right now:

There's so much more to come from AI in positive and accessible ways in the next few years but the Hype Cycle tells us that truly beneficial and realistic outcomes don't always match the expectations. We're also interested here in talking about business-related benefits, i.e. practical, understandable and affordable technologies that we can harness for the good of our bottom line, our staff and our customers.

Please also see related BBC article posted on 28th May, 2024.

The impact is incredible and we're ready...

We've seen a lot of emerging technologies at S-Digital since the mid-90s (when we started out and the web was still burgeoning). However, we all know that AI is the real deal and will change all aspects of our lives, for good or bad, forever:

AI is predicted to generate £3.2 trillion to the global economy

AI is predicted to boost productivity by around 40% for most workers

For business, it's important to really understand what is going to be worth your investment now (and in the more predictable short-term), to ensure that you are not left behind, in all manner of ways.

Traditional Vs Generative AI

The hype is justifiable because GenAI is exciting, time saving and, it's enabling people to become 2D/3D artists, write and summarise articles in seconds, talk to smart chatbots, compose our next symphony and create talking head videos with our own voices. However, there are aspects that are going to be perceived as cheap and a novelty - already AI is being used to detect articles written using AI in order to downgrade their perceived value.

You may not know that GenAI is really just an extension of Traditional AI, the machine learning, rules-driven, probability generating, mathematical modeling system that delivered all the preceding AI/ML-based systems before GenAI - the difference really is that GenAI delivers outputs that are similar to its inputs, rather than generating the traditional, complex mathematical analysis and predictions.

Real Business Cases

Back to the main point of this article, so what's the real benefits of AI over and above the GenAI revolution? Well, it's about harnessing GenAI, where it's accessible and cost-effective but, it's Traditional AI's learning and mathematical modelling that will continue to deliver outcomes that allow us to:

• Optimise our processes in business, thus saving time and overheads, increasing the 'pace' of our organisation, delivering more accurate and timely information to staff and customers so that they can be more productive and better served
• Utilise tools and insights within marketing and sales teams to improve their results
• To operate and automate at scale; delivering more (and better-targeted) one-to-one personalised experiences that engage prospects and customers more effectively
• Be more competitive (using predictive analysis, augmented product design/manufacturing methods, reducing prices and securing new opportunities, etc)

Often, the above represent large investments but, at S-Digital, we've already invested the time and money to create AI-driven technologies that can be readily applied to your organisation.

One prime example is Self-Optimising Machine Automation (SOMA) - it's a game changer for automating and refining tasks, especially within your operations, marketing and sales functions.

Understand how SOMA works and will benefit you with our two minute video:

SOMA - The Game Changer