How Coming AI Innovations Will Give Your Business an Edge | Dice.com Career Advice

This post was originally published on this site.

It’s still early days in the AI game, but we’re already seeing many positive developments for helping businesses—and their employees—operate smarter and more efficiently. And we’re only in the early stages of this revolution. What’s coming next?  

By 2027, AI promises to have developed capabilities far beyond what we see today, and that means crafting a game plan for investment is now critical. I believe AI innovations have the potential to change the way humans interact with technology, both as consumers and within the workspace. 

AI will accelerate an already ongoing change in the ways we search and consume information, from a predominantly text world to a multi-modal world of video, audio and new types of media. In that sense, I believe advancements in multi-modality are the most promising for AI, making workers far more productive and smarter. 

For business leaders and those in charge of talent acquisition and management, it’s time to begin strategizing how to deploy AI in ways that will allow technology professionals to better focus on higher-level, more strategic initiatives; this will include AI-powered training and development programs, as well as new ways to generate ideas. 

AI as Time Saver for Tech Professionals   

I recently dove into the ways in which AI promises to help junior tech professionals, but today I want to broaden the view to include everyone in tech and why it’s critical to have a company-wide strategy for leveraging the power of AI.  

AI is transforming the way workers search for knowledge, replacing traditional search such as Google with a chat- or even outcome-based approach.  

What do I mean by outcome-based? Generative AI tools allow us to ask for a specific outcome, such as a piece of code, an email, or even a complete business deck. Using AI, workers don’t need to search for different approaches, but can let the AI decide on the best solution. 

There are caveats to this, of course. Workers must double-check generative AI’s outputs to ensure what they’re receiving is true quality and will integrate well with the overall workflow; this is especially critical with code snippets, which must function properly within a larger piece of software.  

If done properly, generative AI can greatly speed up not only an individual workflow, but also the pace of a business itself. AI tools can generate emails, answer the initial rounds of customer support calls, fill in product descriptions, and much more. They can handle code completion and debugging to the point where software developers can quickly identify and fix issues as opposed to spending hours debugging code—and that means bringing quality software to market much faster. 

In theory, AI will impact the development of the tech stack to an even greater extent in the years ahead, streamlining the process of designing and managing cloud and data infrastructure. With AI assistance, cloud architects could quickly analyze usage patterns, optimize resource allocation, and automate the deployment of infrastructure based on best practices. Bottom line: companies will be able to respond much faster to their evolving technology and business needs.  

AI Augmenting Human Decision-Making  

AI will soon be able to detect inefficiencies quickly and at scale. For industries that regularly process significant amounts of data, such as utilities, AI has the potential to take a lot of the guesswork out of manual inspection and system monitoring. Meanwhile, companies that sell to consumers have already adopted generative AI as a way to analyze sales trends and identify areas for improvement; for example, a grocery-store chain might rely on AI (assisted by data scientists and engineers) to surface crucial insights from massive sales datasets, and then make decisions about what to discount, discontinue, or double down on.  

Another use case I’ve found particularly interesting: AI-powered bots trained to understand company data. These bots can provide insights into product features, internal processes, and the codebase. For example, an AI assistant trained to identify trends and outliers in real-time data could help with fraud analysis and prevention.  

Utilizing computer vision and machine learning algorithms like deep convolutional neural networks, tech professionals can identify anomalies and make patches or adjustments before the impact of a system breakdown becomes detrimental. 

I’ve also seen how AI is starting to play a role in helping companies simplify the search for shared knowledge from hours to seconds. That’s a game-changer for summarizing huge amounts of information for decision-makers. Through AI-powered solutions, companies are increasingly able to use natural language queries to instantly find and get actionable insights for information that may otherwise be buried in some obscure app or database. Bottom line: tech professionals and other workers will be able to act on their companies’ strategic priorities faster than ever before, and with more useful information available.  

AI Turbocharging Training and Development  

AI has the power to transform how organizations train their employees, improving job satisfaction and retention. 

With Gen Z entering the workforce, employers are starting to restructure their training programs to adapt to a new generation of employee preferences. For example, to keep employees engaged, organizations are incorporating immersive learning techniques such as gamification and adaptive learning. 

AI can provide the next crucial ingredient by personalizing training to individual workers. Everyone learns differently, and the more a professional feels supported to grow in their job, the more satisfied they will be. 

For example, in the field service industry, technicians and engineers can specialize in many different arenas, from large-scale solar panel installation to medical equipment repair and maintenance. Using AI-powered programs to simulate real-world scenarios and personalize training can highlight junior technicians’ aptitude for particular specializations and tailor their careers in response. They’re more likely to stick with a company that presents them with a clear growth path and custom training.  

As we go forward, AI-powered training programs could transform text-based training materials into more accessible formats such as audio and video. This alone can impact the amount of learning for tech professionals without building any new content. Bottom line: for those companies that engage with it, AI could become absolutely crucial to hiring and retention.  

The Future is Arriving Quickly 

AI is already transforming the landscape for tech professionals and organizations. In coming years, the pace of this evolution will only accelerate, impacting everything from training to cloud architecture. That makes it crucial to start investing in AI strategies at every level of your organization right now. With that in mind, here’s some key takeaway advice: 

• Leverage generative AI tools to automate routine tasks and increase productivity. 
• Focus on higher-level problem-solving and innovation. 
• Verify AI outputs to ensure quality and alignment with business objectives. 

This is Part 6 of my article series: From Calculated Risks to Quantum Leaps: Charting the Course for Tech Talent in Flux. You can read the previous article here.