Holding Masters degree from the University of Southern California (USC), Srikanth has been associated with Cigniti for over a decade now, and has even worked as a Research Assistant at USC in the Software Engineering field.

The wave of rapidly evolving technologies has brought about digital disruption and transformation all around and has left no industry untouched. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all set to lead this disruption across multiple sectors such as automobile, aviation, BFSI, e-commerce, healthcare, and more with its multi-dimensional capabilities. With the endless possibilities that AI brings to the table, there is no doubt that the next decade will be very different for all the industries.

Let us take a look at the changes and benefits that AI is set to bring to a few of the major sectors.

Automobile: When Henry Ford introduced the automated assembly line mechanism to boost efficiency and productivity, he was considered a pioneer in the automobile industry. Technology has come a long way since then. AI today plays a critical role in integrating the distribution system, order and vendor delivery system, and in streamlining the marketing and sales automation processes in the automobile industry. In the coming decade, AI will play a critical role in the building of smarter, autonomous, connected cars, which will lead to consumer delight. Not just building cars that bet big on safety, AI is also being used to create robots who will work side-by-side with humans on the supply chain, and tend machines, handle materials, perform tests and pack finished car products.

Aviation: Today, dollars’ worth trillions ride on the success of aviation industry. To keep up with the technology upgrades and grow in the dynamically evolving sector, organizations need to become more Agile to meet the ever increasing customer expectations and unpredictable business environment. According to an estimate by Oliver Wyman, a global management consulting firm, the annual data generation from the airlines industry is set to reach 98 billion gigabytes by 2026. Investing in AI and machine learning will help the aviation industry make sense of this humongous database. Accurate analyses of the data will help streamline and automate analytics, generate and analyze customer feedback (for example by opinion mining or sentiment analysis), provide better service to customers and keep them informed, and optimize the entire gamut of airline operation management.

Banking & Finance: According to a research by National Business Research Institute and Narrative Science, 32 percent of financial service providers are already using AI technologies such as predictive analytics and voice recognition.AI helps banks sift through and accurately analyze data that helps

curb frauds in realtime. Implementing AI-based features such as biometric fraud detection mechanisms, bots, digital payment advisers, and more, banks will be able to provide enhanced customer experience. AI will also help in predicting future outcomes based on analyses of past trends that will lead to effective, autonomous decision-making. Additionally, implementation of practices such as robotic/cognitive process automation, and provision of realistic, interactive interfaces will lead to customer satisfaction, and thereby, increased revenue.

AI applications are designed to address specific, real-world use cases that make the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of patients more efficient, accurate, and available to populations around the world

E-commerce: E-commerce giants such as Amazon and Alibaba are using AI-based apps such as chatbots, image & voice recognition apps, smart recommendation engines etc. to scale up and grow into even bigger behemoths. With digital transformation revolutionizing consumer behavior in terms of their purchasing pattern and check-points, knowing the opportunities and challenges in the digital space is business critical. In this digitally disrupted world, the traditional stores will have to take the leap from retail to e-tail in order to stay relevant. This transition is not only crucial for ROI, but also for an environmentally sustainable future. With the support of data driven recommendations to customers such as My Starbucks Barista, customer-engaging technology tools such as AI-powered virtual assistants and virtual personal shoppers, support for shopping via wearables, and many more disruptive changes happening all around, the ecommerce industry is set to see a huge growth in the coming decade.

Insurance: AI is all set to bring about a massive disruption in the insurance industry. AI will be bringing about a lot of savings for both insurance carriers and policy holders by making use of IoT sensors for implementing behavioral policy pricing wherein safe drivers will pay a lesser premium than rash drivers. Customers will soon experience buying on-demand insurance using chat bots, as also faster, peer-2-peer insurance for settling claims faster. While extremely dynamic, usage-based insurance(UBI) would become more common in the future, automated customer-service apps will handle most queries of policy holders, thus making the process of settling claims much more streamlined than today. To stay in the race and beat the competition, organizations in the Insurance sector need to gear up and start implementing strategic, futuristic plans.

Healthcare: AI in the healthcare industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 50.2 percent by 2025.With intelligent automation coupled with smart algorithms, health tech companies are empowering care providers to predict, prevent, and treat diseases with maximum accuracy. Diagnostic capabilities for predicting disease are on the rise along with advanced electronic health records that help create personalized treatment plans. Not only are these activities leading to cutting down treatment costs significantly, they are also helping doctors take well-informed decisions. Keith Kirkpatrick, a principal analyst at Tractica who focuses on emerging interface technologies, rightly says, “AI applications are designed to address specific, real-world use cases that make the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of patients more efficient, accurate, and available to populations around the world”.

Telecom: While IDC indicates that 63.5 percent of operators are investing in AI systems to improve their infrastructure, per Technavio, the global telecom IoT market will touch a CAGR of over 42 percent by 2020, and this growth will be driven by AI. Utilizing AI, the telcos will be able to deeply analyze their rich data (customer profiles of huge customer bases spread across users of mobile apps, networks, devices) and take smarter and well-informed decisions on how to improve customer experience. AI can also help the telecom industry by providing support for network optimization, predictive maintenance, and virtual assistants.

More than business implications and its contribution towards various industries, AI will also change the capabilities that we as humans should excel in to stay relevant in the workspace environment. The need of the hour is to co-existwith AI towards leveraging their numerous capabilities to derive meaningful insights and act as consultants for our clients.