Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives. Some of its examples include recommendations while searching on the Internet, shopping online, driving using the support of navigation application, etc. AI can be defined as the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines or computer systems. These processes include learning, reasoning, and self-correction using algorithms in computer systems.

AI has already transformed our lives in the form of Alexa and Siri as voice-powered assistants, Amazon product recommendations for our shopping preferences, Google maps as a navigator through the traffic and Smart Home devices such as smart thermostat and smart lights. Through this blog, I would like to discuss some significant applications of AI and explain how is AI shaping our society.

1. Healthcare Industry

AI is applied in the healthcare industry for detecting many health conditions and for improving medical accuracies. According to experts, with the help of AI, computers can feed a large amount of data, mine medical records, recognize the medical patterns and provide more useful information much better than a human analyst. AI in the healthcare sector has grown in such a way that it can predict the hospitalization requirement of patients, need for surgery and can diagnose many diseases. Moreover, AI is used and will be used in other possible medical applications such as elderly care robots, design and assist in treatment plans and medication management, medical consultation, drug discovery and heart sound analysis.[1][2][3][4]

2. Financial Industry

AI is used in the financial industry to manage operations, maintain book-keeping and auditing, prevent and monitor fraudulent financial activities by analyzing the behavioral patterns of users, invest in stocks by making critical decisions in the overnight changes in stocks and online trading in order to achieve improved profits. In addition, AI-powered Robo-advisors can take the role of financial advisors by performing portfolio management and customization of products.  Additionally, AI-powered virtual assistants help to improve customer support and services. Further, AI features in financial computer systems help to reduce payment efforts and simplify complex procedures.[5][6][7]

3. Automotive industry

The automotive industry is set to gain a lot of businesses through AI in the coming years. AI in vehicles includes driving features to assist the drive in cities and highways as well as to alert emergency situations to the driver in order to avoid accidents. Soon, automotive companies will use AI for the creation of fully autonomous vehicles without a driver, which will have features such as automatic braking, lane changing, collision prevention, and navigation. It implies that the autonomous car will need the intelligence to manage critical situations such as collision with pedestrians and other vehicles and constantly ensure the safety of passengers. Additionally, AI cloud services use the powerful AI learning algorithms to predict the maintenance and services required to undergo by detecting the problems before affecting the vehicle’s operation. This innovation will change people’s driving experience, traffic safety, energy consumption, etc. [8][9][10]

4. Agriculture

There are incredible opportunities for AI in the agriculture sector by enabling Smart Farming to gain higher crop production and improve crop quality. The popular applications of AI in agriculture are agricultural robots, crop and soil health monitoring, and predictive analytics. Among these applications, agricultural robots help to perform tasks that are repetitive as well as labor-intensive and thus result in faster and higher volume crop harvesting. In addition, AI can process data to optimize the potential for healthy crop production by monitoring nutrient deficiency in soil, preventing defective crops, and detecting pests. Moreover, AI can help to monitor and predict the weather and environmental changes that impact crop production, crop sustainability and susceptibilities of diseases and pests attack in farms.[11][12][13]

5. Education

Learning supported by AI will make our education system smarter by providing a better learning environment for both students and teachers. One of the applications of AI in the classroom is the AI personal assistant or tutor for each student that can help all students regardless of their age and ability. AI can help to evaluate student’s emotions and react to their learning preferences by making use of adaptive learning programs. In addition, machine-assisted education can also help students together with teachers to facilitate help and support when required for growth. Furthermore, AI also helps to evaluate student performances, the success of the course and provides suggestions for improvement.[14][15]

6. Manufacturing Industry

In the manufacturing sector, robots are given jobs, which are considered as difficult and dangerous for humans to work. In addition, robots replace human efforts by taking over repetitive tasks in the manufacturing process, which may reduce the chance of mistakes due to the lack of human concentration. Moreover, robots help to find microscopic defects of the products and some industries use robots for the careful moving of finished products. AI can also control and predict the raw material sourcing, energy consumption, equipment maintenance, and financial decisions by analyzing the product and market demands depending on socioeconomic segments, and seasonal needs.[16][17][18]

7. Recruiting

AI can improve and transform the job search and recruitment process by making it easier, quicker and efficient.  AI assistance in the recruiting process will help recruiters to save their time for hiring the right person for an open position. AI can accurately assess and predict the candidates’ overall fitness for the open position by collecting sufficient data of each candidate, screening their resumes and thus helping the recruiter to find the best candidate for the first-round interview. Further, AI helps the recruiter to lead AI-assisted interview process for conducting preliminary interviews and screening the candidates from the first-round interview process. AI interviews use biometric and psychometric analysis to evaluate candidates’ answers, voice quality, communication skills, energy of the candidate, facial micro-expressions and body language.[19][20][21][22]

8. Advertising

With the help of AI, advertising companies can mine data and extract user information to develop a new customer base. By understanding the customer interest from the extracted data, the companies can influence each customer by suggesting or recommending the relevant product advertisements that the customers are looking for or may be interested in.[23][24]

Artificial Intelligence is already a reality in our daily lives and will become more prevalent and ubiquitous in the society by taking up more activities in many more areas and thus adding more value for our time and efforts.   

Read next: Societal challenges and Limitations of Artificial Intelligence

References

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[2] Eric J Topol, Nature Medicine, 25, 2019, 44-56.

[3] N Ilyasova et al., Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, 28, 2018, 114-121.

[4] D Douglas Miller et al., The American Journal of Medicine, 131, 2018, 129-133.

[5] Wood Blake, Journal of Financial Planning, 32, 2019, 20-21.

[6] Saqib Aziz et al., Disrupting Finance, Palgrave Studies in Digital Business & Enabling Technologies, 2018, 33-50.

[7] Armando Vieira et al., Digital Marketplaces Unleashed, 2017, 311-326.

[8] Peter Mertens, ATZ worldwide, 120, 2018, 86.

[9] Jun Li et al., Automotive Innovation, 1, 2018, 2-14.

[10] Asif Faisal et al., Journal of Transport and Land Use, 12, 2019, 45-72.

[11] Diego Inacio Patricio et al., Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 153, 2018, 69-81.

[12] Gonzalez Perea R. et al., Agricultural Water Management, 206, 2018, 229-240.

[13] Barun Basnet et al., Journal of Sensors, 2018, 1-13.

[14] Mudit Verma, International Journal of Advanced Educational Research, 3, 2018, 5-10.

[15] Richa Bajaj et al., Procedia Computer Science, 132, 2018, 834-842.

[16] Andrew Kusiak, International Journal of Production Research, 56, 2018, 508-517.

[17] Aydin Azizi, Applications of Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Industry 4.0, 2019, 7-17.

[18] Amar Kumar Das et al., International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 5, 2018, 1788-1790.

[19] Sudarshan Sreeram, AI Matters, 4, 2018, 22-28.

[20] Divyanshi Mishra et al., International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 5, 2018, 3804-3808.

[21] Patrick van Esch et al., Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 2019, 215-22.

[22] Fernandez C et al., ERCIM NEWS, 116, 2019, 22.

[23] Liming Wang et al., International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing, 14, 2018, 97-101.

[24] Olson Christi et al., Applied Marketing Analytics, 3, 2018, 291-297.