Artificial intelligence is something many people associate with science-fiction, humanoid robots, and the far future. In reality, however, AI is already an integral part of our everyday life. Face-ID, email spam filter, and smart home devices are only a few examples of the products we encounter every day which make use of artificial intelligence in order to provide the user with the best experience and to make life a little easier for us.
While AI is only in its infancy, the future looks bright. Self-driving cars or nursing robots are only two of the millions of possible uses for advanced AI. However, AI, advanced to a point where it works almost like the human mind, is a vision for the future. For now, AI is being used on a much smaller scale, often depending on human input to be successful.
It is the human input and the ability to work together with humans which makes human-centered AI such a significant technology. For instance, in the healthcare sector AI can help process massive data amounts and interpret this data, but eventually it is the human doctor who makes a diagnosis. This is a great example of how humans and AI can work together to accomplish tasks more efficiently and achieve better results. And every other business can also profit from human-centered AI in much the same way.
What Is AI?
AI, short for artificial intelligence, is a field in computer science with great potential. In the simplest terms, AI programs receive data as input. This input, which can vary between documents, pictures, files, and much more, is processed through a set of algorithms in order to provide answers to certain questions about the inputted data. The more input the program receives, the more it learns, thus becoming “smarter”, much like a human being. Eventually, the program will become skilled in analyzing and answering input.
While self-driving cars and human-like robots are a thing of the far future, if at all, AI already has real-world applications. Things as common as autocorrect or face recognition, something every smartphone is able to do these days, is based on AI. On the other hand, a more advanced example are virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and others.
But not only in the private area does AI find purpose. Chatbots or digital agents can serve to replace human contact at least to a certain degree. While in medicine, AI can identify possible tumors. Even Netflix suggestions are customized using AI.
What Is Human-Centered AI?
Human-centered AI is essentially based on human collaboration with artificial intelligence, all within a large human-based system. Those systems are continually improved by human input, thus leading to an enhanced experience and understanding between humans and robots. The intention behind this kind of AI is to aid the gap between humans and machines, to teach them to understand emotions, behaviors, and even language.
Albeit not a replacement for human beings, human-centered AI is meant to work with, help, and improve the work humans do. For instance, human weaknesses, such as analyzing large amounts of data, can be aided by machines while humans can utilize and steer AI to understand human needs better and thus deliver the best results and help reach the desired objective.
In a business, human-centered AI is used to understand the drives, expectations, and demands that lead to certain behaviors of customers and consumers. Data and human science are combined to provide information about the behavior and actions of human beings, to determine certain patterns. Those patterns can then be used to upgrade and individualize the customers' experience.
Benefits of Human-Centered AI in Your Business
There are a multitude of good reasons to employ human-centered AI in a business context. However, it has to be kept in mind that this variation of AI is not supposed to replace human beings but rather to support them and enhance business operations.
AI is meant to take on tasks difficult for humans while allowing them to focus their time and attention on more complex matters like interpersonal communication and interaction.
Informed Decision-Making
The desire not to replace humans but rather to work with them ties directly into one of the great benefits of human-centered AI which is to allow humans to make informed decisions. Through the combination of human input and AI, businesses are able to make decisions based on carefully evaluated data.
What makes human-centered AI indispensable here is the machine's ability to process massive amounts of data, by far too large to be processed by any human. This inputted information is then transformed into smaller, comprehensible bits which can be easily comprehended. Therefore, the whole decision-making process becomes a much less daunting task and allows businesses to come up with improved solutions.
More Successful Product Development
When working on a new product, be it a physical one, a software, or a service, one of the most important factors is the user experience. In order to develop a product that satisfies customers, it is important to know what they expect and desire from a certain product.
Here, human-centered AI can help developers to create products that are better, more successful, and fulfill the specific needs of the consumer. Through the combination of behavioral science and AI, product designers and developers are able to gain an understanding of the users' behavior and subconscious patterns, thus allowing them to design a product that best fits their needs and generates the most rewarding user experience.
Personalized Customer Experience
When it comes to the customer's journey and their experience with a business, human-centered AI technology can also play a major role. AI allows the vendor to analyze large amounts of data, thereby taking the customers preferences, desires, and purchase history into consideration. This way the analytics of human-centered AI allow insight into the customers' psyche and what drives them to buy or behave a certain way.
Converting this information into applicable data enables companies to develop strategies to satisfy their customer more effectively by personalizing and overall improving the customer's experience. The ultimate goal is to know what the customer wants before they themselves are aware of it.
Concluding Thoughts
Human-centered AI is essentially a tool that is supposed to work with humans, simplifying their work, helping them, and improving efficiency. This collaboration between humans and machines, if applied in the right way and in the right place, can lead to great advances and help businesses grow and flourish. Improved customer experiences, better products, and informed decisions are only a few of the benefits human-centered AI can bring to a business. So maybe it is time for you to invest in the future and human-centered AI solutions.
