We know technology is advancing at a rate, but I have become aware of a great example. There was a recent article in The Economist around how a German online retailer OTTO, who are utilising AI effectively to improve the performance of their business and customer service. OTTO used technology developed by Blue Yonder and a deep learning algorithm originally developed at CERN for particle physics experiments, to analyse 3bn previous transactions with 200 variables. These included previous site searches. Armed with this capability they were able to purchase over 200,000 items, predicting what will be sold in  30 days with a 90% accuracy.

OTTO are clear that they see this as performance enhancement, not human job reduction. Interestingly Juergen Maier ,UK CEO of Siemens when asked  a similar  question on AI on last weeks Question Time, stated the same. Commerce and Industry needs to up-skill in order to programme the robots and develop systems. We need to invest in the right skills to have the right economic growth. I have written about AI in a previous post, it can be a very powerful tool, but in the race performance there will need to be checks and balances on efficacy. It raises an interesting question about how far AI can really go, but we do know that global companies that are managing their data effectively, are becoming the economic super elite. Companies that are close to point of use are certainly getting “leaner” in terms of workforce, but we must not forget the service / IT jobs that are created behind it. Furthermore, if there is better order accuracy and less physical waste we are moving to a more sustainable planet. OTTO have won awards for Corporate Social Responsibility.

 

 

 

Humans & Machines in Harmony

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