Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming the new user interface, underpinning the way people transact and interact with systems, according to a new global study which found that 79% of survey respondents agree that AI will “revolutionise” the way they gain information from and interact with customers.
The annual global survey by management firm Accenture — ‘Technology Vision 2017’ — surveyed 5400 business and IT executives, including in Australia, and found that “people hold the power to shape and apply technology to create positive change, improve lives, and transform business and society”.
“The theme of this year’s report is the emergence of technology ‘for people, by people’ – technology that seamlessly anticipates our needs and delivers hyper-personalised experiences,” said Justin Baird, Accenture’s managing director of R&D, Technology & Innovation in Australia.
“The ‘people first’ theme serves as a powerful call to action for business and technology leaders to actively design and direct technology to augment and amplify human capabilities.”
{loadposition peter}Baird says the study found that with advances in artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and big data analytics – humans can now design technology capable of learning to think more like people and to constantly align to and help advance their wants and needs.
“This human-centred technology approach pays off for organisations, as leading companies will transform relationships from provider to partner – simultaneously transforming internally”.
According to Accenture, American retail pharmacy and health care company, CVS Health, is one example of a company that has established a people-centric approach – in this instance to improve healthcare.
Accenture says CVS Health’s smartwatch-compatible mobile app sets customers’ personalised reminders for taking medication, snaps pictures of their prescriptions to expedite refills, and scans their insurance card so that store clerks are prepared with up-to-date information.
“In an industry long associated with impersonal interactions and unbearable wait times, companies like CVS Health are enabling individual empowerment over personal healthcare while simultaneously building closer patient-doctor relationships,” Accenture notes.
Other key findings of the Accenture research were:
• Design for Humans. Technology design decisions are being made by humans, for humans. Technology adapts to how we behave and learns from us to enhance our lives, making them richer and more fulfilling. Eighty per cent (80%) of executives surveyed agree that organisations need to understand not only where people are today, but also where they want to be – and shape technology to act as their guide to realise desired outcomes.
• Ecosystems as Macrocosms. Platform companies that provide a single point of access to multiple services have completely broken the rules for how companies operate and compete. Companies don’t just need a platform strategy, they need a rich and robust ecosystem approach to lead in this new era of intelligence. Already, more than one-quarter (27%) of executives surveyed reported that digital ecosystems are transforming the way their organisations deliver value.
• Workforce Marketplace. The number of on-demand labour platforms and online work-management solutions is surging. As a result, leading companies are dissolving traditional hierarchies and replacing them with talent marketplaces, which in turn is driving the most profound economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Case in point: 85% of executives surveyed said they plan to increase their organisation’s use of independent freelance workers over the next year.
• The Uncharted. To succeed in today’s ecosystem-driven digital economy, businesses must delve into uncharted territory. Instead of focusing solely on introducing new products and services, they should think much bigger – seizing opportunities to establish rules and standards for entirely new industries. In fact, 74 per cent of the executives surveyed said that their organisation is entering entirely new digital industries that have yet to be defined.