The World Economic Forum is already claiming Artificial Intelligence (AI) is “the fourth industrial revolution” and many experts believe “the impact of AI will be bigger than electricity”.
Considering this, businesses should be rushing to get in on the action, or at least be figuring out ways they can mitigate loss. However, technology expert, Dale Beaumont, says major companies in Australia have been slow to realise the impact of Artificial Intelligence.
A survey from earlier this year found Australian companies to be the worst-prepared for the arrival of AI among other major economies, regardless of spending the second highest amount of money on automation (behind only the US).
According to Beaumont, if Australian businesses don’t act soon, banks, insurance companies and even supermarkets are at serious risk of being disrupted by AI-first competitors.
“When it comes to AI, in America the horses have already bolted. Every major company is hiring AI talent, buying start-ups or documenting their strategic plan. And all companies adopting AI are experiencing benefits.”
“According to research by the ABI, the number of businesses adopting AI technologies worldwide will grow from 7,000 in 2017 to almost 900,000 in 2022. But Australian companies aren’t even in the blocks, they’re still figuring out if they want to use a saddle”, says Beaumont.
He goes on to say that the point companies don’t get is, AI takes time. It’s a three-year investment. So by the time they see mainly US and European competitors stealing market share, it’s already too late.
Not only does Australia rank last in terms of the skills required for AI adoption and plans to integrate, but the survey also found that Australian leaders are the most likely to be planning to make employees redundant instead of reassigning them when their role is made redundant by AI.
This is concerning, considering that 40% of Australian jobs are forecasted to be automated by 2025.
Dale Beaumont says it was 2014 when he first realised the benefits of AI in his business. By that point, he was already running a multimillion dollar business training company. However, after conducting a feasibility study on global expansion, he realised boots on the ground was not the most profitable path.
This led Dale to hire a team of developers across three continents and in 2015 they began building “the world’s first AI-powered business advisor”. The App is capable of providing tailored education and human-like support to any entrepreneur on the planet.
Now available globally via an App named BRiN, early results have been impressive with over 38,000 entrepreneurs from around the world now signing up for the free service. In terms of business models Beaumont reveals their goal is to get 100,000 users within the next 12-months, which will help them to train their algorithm. Then after that they’ll begin introducing paid subscription plans.
To access BRiN and check out it’s AI-powered business advisor, go to http://BRiN.ai.