Why Are Tech Companies Investing in AI Rather Than Humans?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic in many circles today because of its impact in the business world. More specific to tech companies, they’re interested in it as a way to automate and accelerate data-intensive processes to better serve their customers. For example, Element AI, an AI tech startup, recently raised $102 million from multinational corporations like Intel, Nvidia and Microsoft, in the largest Series A funding round for an AI company in history.

Businesses like Element AI are working with companies in diverse fields like fintech, cybersecurity, manufacturing, logistics, transportation and robotics to make sense of their data with the help of AI.

Artificial Intelligence Trends: Why It Became a Popular Technology

This choice, to use and invest in AI as opposed to humans, is an easy one when taking into account what Matt Ocko, DCVC Managing Partner, has to say: “The most serious problems facing global industry and government today involve too much complex and rapidly changing data for the cognitive capacity of even large numbers of human experts working together...These groups - and the customers and citizens they serve - need intelligent systems that can work in concert with them to field that scale and complexity.”

Beyond than making sense of data, companies are also using AI for its capabilities in areas such as voice assistant technology, image recognition and data prediction. Let’s take a deeper look into why these companies are opting for AI rather than humans.

The Many Benefits of Artificial Intelligence

“Artificial Intelligence is a ‘must have’ capability for global companies,” said Element AI CEO Jean-François Gagné. “Without it, they are competitively impaired if not at grave risk of being obsoleted in place.” Gagné’s comment is representative of what many people believe, that AI is the future and ignoring emerging artificial intelligence trends will only prove to be detrimental in the long run.

To get a better idea, here are key areas benefiting from AI’s influence:

Prediction

Because AI can analyze data much more efficiently than humans, it can rapidly detect patterns and make (more often than not) accurate predictions. Exemplifying this, Aidyia, an AI tech company, has a hedge fund that makes all stock trades with AI. It analyzes many factors, such as market prices, trade volumes, microeconomic data and corporate accounting documents, to make predictions. As a matter of fact, it actually generated a 2% return on its first day of trading.