AI has been around for years. In fact, the earliest successful AI program was written by Christopher Strachey in 1951. His draughts program ran on the Ferranti Mark I computer at the University of Manchester. 

Since then, AI has developed. It’s gone off the scale to become one of the most significant technological advancements of our time. It can process vast amounts of data, recognise patterns, create artwork, write poetry and prose, and even fix computer code. 

Its potential is boundless. It’s revolutionising the way we work, live and communicate.  

However, despite these benefits, there are some businesses that could be AI hesitant. This is understandable. But you can’t stop progress.   

Not embracing AI could be a critical misstep. In today's technology-driven world, is being an AI laggard a smart move?  

In this article, we'll explore the reasons why businesses should embrace AI technology. We’ll look at the risks of not doing so, and what they should do to embrace AI. 

AI reluctancy 

One of the main reasons why businesses might be reluctant to adopt AI is the perception of it: 

• Being too complicated

• Being very expensive

• Needing a lot of resources to implement 

This may have been true a few years ago. But not today. With AI becoming a lot more user friendly and cheaper to implement, this hesitancy may be misplaced.   

Additionally, some businesses might be apprehensive about AI’s ethical implications. For example, fearing the loss of control and transparency that comes with delegating decisions to machines.  

Consequences  

One significant consequence of not embracing AI is a lack of competitiveness. As more and more businesses begin to adopt it, those that don’t, risk falling behind their competitors.  

There’s also a missed opportunity for growth. Why? Because AI can help businesses identify new markets, streamline operations, and create new revenue streams.  

These are great things to improve upon if businesses want to stay relevant. Not taking advantage of AI could inhibit a business’s development and financial stability. 

Another thing to consider are the potential higher costs and inefficiencies because of not using AI. Although there’s still debate about the role of humans, as AI improves, it will nonetheless help businesses automate repetitive tasks. This will free up employees to focus on more value adding tasks. 

Not embracing AI and machine learning can also lead to gaps in the customer experience. That’s because consumers expect a level of personalisation that’s only going to get better with AI. If these expectations aren’t met (for example by not using a DXP with AI composable features), then there’s a high probability that customers will go elsewhere. 

The benefits of embracing AI  

• Automates mundane tasks 

• Reduces human error

• Reduces operational cost

• Delivers hyper-personalised customer experiences

• Helps gain a competitive edge by improving products and services 

• Improves customer engagement and loyalty

• Enhances marketing strategies

• Streamlines content creation (with natural language processing)

• Improves customer service

• Delivers better analytics and helps data driven strategies

• Improves business processes 

What businesses should do to embrace new technologies 

• Acquire knowledge: It’s important for businesses to understand how AI can benefit their operations and customer experience.

• Invest in AI solutions: Exploring AI-powered solutions that align with business goals is so important. Having a scalable AI technology stack would go a long way to future proofing the business.

• Start small: Businesses should start by implementing AI in small, low-risk areas and gradually expand its use as they become more comfortable with the technology.

• Think ROI: Businesses should focus on the ROI of AI solutions to ensure that they’re investing in technologies that provide measurable benefits. 

• Partner with AI vendors: Partnering with AI vendors is a great opportunity to access pre-built AI solutions that can be customised to meet specific needs.

• Educate and empower employees: Educating employees about AI technology and its potential benefits is vital. This will not only help them use it to their advantage, it will also help employees understand the value of AI and be more receptive to its adoption. 

Codehouse and AI 

At Codehouse we continuously embrace and research new tech and new tools that could help improve efficiency. And AI is no different. We’re currently working with: 

• ContentAssistAI: Revolutionise Sitecore content effortlessly with ContentAssistAI! AI-powered language adjustments, efficient summarisation, and custom images at your fingertips. Brought to you by the team at Codehouse.

• GitHub CoPilot: Also advertised as the AI pair programmer, this is a tool that runs alongside our development. It suggests code snippets that help improve development productivity. Even if not yet ready to replace actual human developers, we have quantified a 40% increase in productivity.

• Quality AI (Codacy): This tool runs alongside Codacy to check code quality and standards, providing AI generated code improvements on pull requests in GitHub.

• Sitecore Search: AI powered algorithms to power site searches and sort relevant results. 

Our team has also created a few internal demos that integrate with OpenAI APIs. For example: 

• Chat bot integrated with Codehouse Confluence to assist our team in finding relevant content.

• Content suggestions integrated into Sitecore that can create content on the fly.

• AI tools for QA: This is an on-going project where we’re looking into AI tools that can improve the productivity of our QA team. 

Working with Codehouse 

Codehouse has been working with technology for over 15 years. Our experts have delivered multiple award winning, experience driven websites to our customers.  

If you have a project our experts are available to get you started. Get in touch to find out more.