What can weak AI, also known as narrow band AI, do for your cybersecurity? The answer might surprise you. You might be inclined to be skeptical of artificial intelligence because you assume it requires a team of specialists. Fortunately, AI technology has come a long way, and it is now much easier to implement. To open your mind to the possibilities, here are five examples that show weak AI can boost your business.
1) Capture More Leads Using Narrow Band Chatbots
Nothing happens in business until a sale is made. That was true 50 years ago, and it is still true today. Weak AI can help you make more sales by capturing more leads. For example, by installing chatbots on your website you can convert website visitors into leads. Instead of simply collecting contact information for later follow-up, this type of chatbot goes a step further. A website sales chatbot can clarify what products a lead wants and whether they are a new customer.
According to Drift’s 2019 State of Conversational Marketing report, 40% of consumers love the 24/7 service offered by chatbots. Let your employees work regular business hours, and chatbots can interact with customers the rest of the time. Chatbots also help you to generate leads consistently and make sure nobody falls through the cracks. It is a good way to improve consistency and focus in your sales process.
2) Enhance Customer Service Speed
In a world defined by Netflix and Amazon speed, keeping customers on hold for long periods is not a smart strategy. Years ago, customers would tolerate waiting in a phone queue for service. In 2019 and beyond, you cannot count on that level of customer patience. As a result, weak AI has arrived to help customer service.
To explain how AI helps in customer service, it is useful to segment customer requests into two groups. The first group of customer requests is routine and predictable, such as asking about the status of a shipment or refund. The second group of customer service requests is complex problems or one-off situations. You can use narrow band AI chatbots to fulfill the first type of customer service requests.
Chatbots for customer service has already become extremely popular. For example, NBC has a chatbot designed to help users find online news related to their interests. Even the health care field is exploring chatbots – MedWhat is an interactive chatbot that allows people to better understand their health. Such services all play a role in delivering better customer service around the clock.
3) Strengthen Your IT Security
In IT security, there is no such thing as “perfect security.” Every week, there are new threats and vulnerabilities. Last year, you may have provided comprehensive IT security training to all employees. Then, a dozen new employees were hired last month, and you realize you have gaps. One way to keep up to date on IT security is to empower employees to get quick IT security help.
When you equip employees to request access changes and new passwords quickly, they are going to be less motivated to reuse passwords. You can make this happen by implementing Apollo, a specialized IT security chatbot. By making password changes available to employees 24/7, you will see a reduction in less secure habits such as writing passwords down on scraps of paper. If you have a global workforce with staff in multiple time zones, providing additional IT security service with chatbots will help you to keep the whole enterprise secure.
4) Reduce Employee Burnout
In the industrial age, scientific management experts like Frederick Winslow Taylor recommended every movement in the workplace be scripted to increase productivity. One hundred years ago, that strategy had value. Today, we live in the knowledge age, and you need employees to bring their ideas and problem-solving skills to work. However, if you ask employees to do repetitive and boring tasks over and over again, they will start to burn out.
Happily, chatbots can help you solve the burnout problem. Take the example of overworked IT security professionals. There is a well-known talent shortage in IT security, so today’s professionals often have to work long hours. There are just not enough hours in the day to take care of everything. In this world of pressure, it is easy to focus on urgent problems like user requests. What happens next? Long term projects like risk assessments and improving employee security awareness never occur.
The solution is to use narrow band AI chatbots to do more routine tasks. That will free up time and energy for your employees to take on challenging, different tasks at work.
5) Optimize Your Finances With Chatbots
Your organization probably spends millions of dollars or more each year on vendors, suppliers, consultants and other providers. Each invoice that arrives for payment has a different process. The pricing needs to be checked, and the payment schedule must be met. Keeping up with all of these invoices and payments is enough to drive your accounts payable department crazy!
Chatbots can help to manage some of the chaos by providing service to your vendors. Instead of having vendors call to ask about their payment status, they can send a question to a chatbot and get an answer fast. Delivering fast responses to your vendors means less disappointment and less stress for your finance department.
How You Can Make The Most Of Your Chatbot Productivity
You have just learned about five ways that weak AI – or narrow band AI chatbots – can save time. In reality, that’s just one side of the productivity coin. The other side of the coin: putting those time savings to good use! For example, take a hard look at your hard-working IT security managers and professionals. If you could free up five hours of their work time each week, what could you accomplish? That might give you enough capacity to finally launch a new security initiative like treating password reuse disease.
