Savvy business leaders have been following AI developments for years, long before ChatGPT stormed the stage in 2022. AI is well on its way to changing the work landscape; Goldman Sachs’ Forecast March 2023 is that AI could replace up to 300 million full-time jobs worldwide by 2030.
That’s rightfully a frightening headline for professional services workers who are already insecure about their economic worth. Fortunately, the details are more encouraging. Goldman Sachs predicts a new wave of technological innovation and a 7% increase in the total value of goods and services produced worldwide. In other words, a productivity explosion. One driven by AI’s rapidly improving ability to inform and shape business decisions.
AI is transforming the way business is done – and how business leaders make important decisions.
It’s already happening. Here’s how AI is playing a role in modern business decision-making in four key areas.
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1. Enabling real estate investors to make informed decisions
Most independent real estate investors know that the best deals fly under the radar: short sales, foreclosures, and especially unlisted properties.
Extensive valuation and lead generation tools such as DealMachine demonstrate the power of AI in real estate. Such tools go beyond the MLS properties everyone is looking for to discover hidden opportunities. They have their own valuation models that help investors determine whether an opportunity actually arises.
AI-powered real estate tools cannot (yet) prevent investors from making the wrong decision. But by providing much more information and capabilities than non-AI predecessors, they take much of the guesswork and grunting out of the process.
2. Reduction of manual project management tasks
Project management solutions such as Air table And Monday. com are already using AI and machine learning to improve workflow efficiency. Continued progress in this area is likely to be iterative, with future versions automating more and more of the time-consuming work.
But it’s going to be dramatic anyway. Back in 2019, Gartner predicted that AI could automate 80% of project management tasks by 2030. Today that seems like a conservative estimate. In the near future people will have to be involved, but individual project managers will be able to do much more than before. They make far fewer small business decisions inherent in the project management workflow and instead focus on the big, strategic decisions.
3. Synthesize massive amounts of digital information to make evidence-based decisions
Search engine technology has improved dramatically over the last 20 years, but the basic model hasn’t. You type in a query, the algorithm tries to understand what you mean, and then spits out a bunch of links it thinks are relevant.
Often the results are excellent. And often they are not. Iterative improvements have worked well enough so far, but it’s clear that the model has fundamental flaws.
AI could change that, perhaps sooner than we think. Google is new Find generative experience (SGE) offers a glimpse of a future where AI responds to your question and analyzes the vast amount of information in that response. In human terms, it clicks on the links and summarizes their content without any action on your part.
It’s easy to see how SGE can streamline business decision-making and help executives and their direct reports synthesize information much faster. While it won’t become Google’s default search model tomorrow, it’s coming and the implications could be profound.
AI chatbots have been an important part of customer service for years. Machine learning algorithms have steadily expanded their influence in digital marketing as well.
The next frontier is AI-driven behavioral analytics and predictive marketing. That is, figuring out what the customer wants before they even know it. You could argue that talented human marketers are already doing this, and you’d be right. However, humans don’t work as fast as algorithms and often miss opportunities that hide in plain sight.
Like other uses for AI in business decision-making, the value of predictive marketing lies in freeing people up to focus on strategic tasks that they can (for now) still do better than algorithms. People can steer campaigns and make connections at a high level, automation does the rest.
Unlocking the potential of AI in business
AI technology is already indispensable for business decision makers in sectors as diverse as real estate, human resources and healthcare. And the ability to support and improve human decision-making is advancing rapidly. Wherever you work and whatever your role, now is the time to familiarize yourself with unlocking its potential. Because while AI may not replace your job anytime soon, it can advance your career.
