Artificial Intelligence is fast becoming one of the biggest change-makers in how businesses operate and grow. Many of the world’s largest companies are reaping the benefits of the ever-developing technology to stay at the top of their game. So how are some companies innovating themselves with AI when it comes to customer service, product development and expense saving?
Coca Cola: Catering to customers anywhere in the world
With 500 drink brands sold in more than 200 countries Coca Cola is the largest beverage company in the world. With such an extensive product list and global market, Coca-Cola needed to embrace new technology to store its data and support product development to stay at the top.
The new Cherry Sprite flavour was inspired by data collected from self-service drink fountains that let customers mix their own drinks. By tracking trends in what customers mixed, Coca-Cola could launch a product that they knew consumers were already enjoying.
Seeing the success of AI bots such as Siri and Alexa – the company is now developing virtual assistants for their vending machines. These will allow users to personalise their experience, for example, by asking the machine to mix their favourite blend exactly to their preference. Their AI also enables varied behaviour from the machines based on their environment. For example, in a shopping centre, customers will be greeted by a lively, jolly vending machine, and a more sombre machine in a hospital waiting room.
BP: Saving millions through AI reliance
Present in 72 countries, BP has led the way in the energy sector in realising the opportunities of AI. The company now has AI sensors in over 99% of their oil and gas wells to continuously optimise the performance of equipment and monitor maintenance needs to prevent breakdowns. With this data allowing them to see the realities of conditions at each site, BP can make a huge amount of savings in costs.
BP’s large reliability in data for its operations has led to large investments in technology as its future. It is in the midst of an expansion that will increase its data capacity from about 1 petabyte to 6 petabytes by 2020. This large investment seems justified, however, with the rated reliability of their exploration and production facilities rising from 88% in 2012 to 95% in 2016 – largely attributed to their use of technology in data streaming, storage and processing capabilities.
American Express: Fighting against fraud and connecting customers with businesses
When handling more than 25% of US credit card activity and with one trillion dollars in transactions processed, embracing AI is essential in staying at the top of their game for American Express.
Credit card fraud detection – one of the biggest financial drains of any credit card company – is a large focus of AmEX’s AI technology. With a machine learning model that stores data such as credit membership information, spending details and merchant information, their technology can detect suspicious events and make a decision in milliseconds by comparing that event to a larger dataset. This has enabled American Express to detect more fraudulent transactions and save millions. Adopting a similar technology, Visa has estimated a $2 billion identification of potential annual incremental fraud opportunities – able to be sorted before any of it lost due to their use of AI.
Increasingly, AmEx are now focusing their technology on connecting consumers and businesses by developing apps through their own vast data flows. One app, Amex Offers, shows real-team coupons relevant to the customer’s lifestyle and previous buying habits based on their physical location and nearby businesses. This isn’t just a personalised benefit for cardholders that use the app, but also an incentive for more businesses to accept American Express.
Press Association: Saving an industry through technology
Local news is an industry that has been declining for the past decade in the face of technology and leaving many journalists jobless, where the surge in readership of online news has led advertisers to allocate their budgets elsewhere. However, leading UK news agency Press Association has found a way to make technology fill the hole left by redundant journalists and ensuring we can still shine a light on those critical local issues. Their AI project, RADAR – Reporters and Data and Robots – uses data from local authorities and public services to generate news stories while also using natural language generation technology similar to that of Apple’s Siri.
What is great about this is not only that it can potentially counter the spread of fake and subjective news, but it is an example of technology not taking away jobs from humans, but “doing something that no one else is doing” in the words of the news automation specialist, Gary Rogers.
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