The Next Frontier: Embracing AI in the Digital Age

At Loomery, we help tech-powered organisations make digital product progress and as a result we pride ourselves on staying ahead of the curve. Today, many of our conversations inevitably lead to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI, the terms and imagery around it can often feel a bit futuristic and scary, but actually it's just a new set of tools and interfaces for us to build with. 

In this introductory post, we explain why now is the right time to start investing and building your skills, whatever size of organisation you work for. This is the first instalment in a series that will delve deeper into the "big questions" surrounding AI, equipping you to make informed decisions for your company.

‍AI: The Foundational Technology of Tomorrow

Imagine the impact of the internet in the 1990s, or the rise of cloud computing and mobile technology in the early 2000s. Now, consider that AI has the potential to be even more transformative, in ways that are hard to predict today. AI will be a foundational technology for the next half-century, fundamentally altering how we live, work, and interact with the world around us. It’s a safe assumption that we’ve only seen the very earliest applications of the technology. 

Early Movers, Big Rewards: Parallels to Past Tech Disruptions

Remember the companies that embraced the internet early on? Those that saw its potential and adapted quickly reaped significant rewards. The same principle applies to AI. Companies across industries are already implementing AI solutions with tangible results. Here are just a few examples:

• Retail: Tesco is using the EagleAI platform to develop individually tailored clubcard reward offers for three million customers. 
• Transport: Transport for London are using AI and machine vision to increase the number of customers who can pass through a tube station. 
• Government: The UK government are testing an OpenAI powered chatbot to help users find the information they need on the vast GOV.UK website. 
• Banking: Natwest Group is using AWS based models to detect behaviours that suggest a customer might be being scammed.

While none of these examples is fundamentally changing any of these organisations, each is building important skills, and learning to apply new techniques with their data. 

Getting Started: Embracing the Unknown

In each of the examples above the organisation is testing the possibilities for their organisation by leveraging widely available AI models to improve experiences or make operational gains. At the same time they’re learning and refining their own abilities to adopt the technologies more widely.

The future of AI holds many unknowns. Which specific use cases will deliver the most value? How can we experiment effectively? What impact will AI have on different job roles? It's important to acknowledge these unknowns, but they shouldn't paralyse us.

The best approach is to start building and learning. By proactively experimenting with AI, your company can begin to gather data, unlock its potential, and gain a vital head start in navigating this transformative technology.

Join Us on the Journey: A Look Ahead

This blog post is just the beginning of our public exploration of AI. In the coming weeks, we'll delve deeper into the key questions surrounding AI implementation:

• Identifying the Right Use Cases: How to prioritise specific business challenges that AI can effectively address.
• How to experiment effectively: What needs to change about product design and development for the AI context.
• Building and Implementing AI Solutions: Strategies and frameworks for developing and integrating AI into your existing workflows.
• Developing the right skills: Exploring when AI will augment or replace human talent in the workforce.
• Selecting the most useful tools: A model for deciding which tools, platforms are best suited for your use case.

By following this series, you'll gain the knowledge and confidence to embrace AI and shape its role in your company's future. Remember, the future is being built today. Let's explore this new frontier together.

Loomery can help you get ahead of the competition by creating a practical plan to adopt AI as part of your strategy.

Stay tuned for Part 2!