The overlooked AI use-case powering business productivity gains that last

AI exploded into global awareness with the public release of ChatGPT, which grew to an incredible 100 million active users in its first two months. Overnight, everyone had access to groundbreaking language and graphics tools that generate impressive results with simple text inputs.

The power and potential of generative AI is as controversial as it is amazing, but no matter where our early opinions on it may lie, we can’t put this genie back in the bottle. AI will continue its exponential growth in terms of its capabilities, applications, and impact on our lives.

The revolution in business has begun, as companies all over the world are scrambling to determine business impacts and find ways to leverage AI to become more profitable and competitive. According to McKinsey, more than half of organisations today are already leveraging AI in some capacity. Companies that are AI “high performers” are making large investments in AI and finding new ways to solve problems.

There are countless potential applications for AI, and like the internet 25 years ago, the companies that embrace it will be best positioned to thrive. Those that fail to take advantage of it will likely be left behind. Automating mundane tasks, customer support chatbots, data analysis, and healthcare diagnostics are just a few applications of this new tech. Most use cases haven’t been imagined yet.

According to a PwC report, a resounding 86 per cent of CEOs believe AI will be mainstream technology within their companies by 2025. But many business leaders today simply need to know what they can do right now that will positively impact business performance. One of the most overlooked AI use cases solves a problem that practically all businesses share—the challenge of data onboarding and information management.

Data onboarding is the process of collecting, organising, and processing new data from various inputs. This data can be fed into AI systems to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions. The process can be complex and time-consuming, especially for companies that deal with constant inflows from multiple data sources in a variety of formats – all of which need to be delivered into various business applications.

The old “garbage in, garbage out” warning still applies in the age of AI. To get the most from any AI or machine learning system, information inputs must be accurate, up to date and, to some extent, structured. In other words, the ability to consistently onboard high-quality data is critical to any AI use case. Business leaders that invest in robust data onboarding solutions are positioning their companies for the future, making the most of the opportunity in AI to create lasting business value.

One of the best ways to optimise data onboarding across an enterprise is to leverage intelligent document processing (IDP) software. This technology is helping companies automate the collection and organisation of data to reduce risk, improve productivity, and enable sustainable business growth. In addition, pairing IDP software with high-performance document scanners significantly improves data quality and reduces business risks associated with errors and omissions.

According to research from IDC, over half of companies polled in 2023 are leveraging or exploring IDP software. Where does AI come into play?

IDP solutions already use advanced systems such as intelligent character recognition (ICR) to extract information from documents. By choosing IDP software that integrates with the latest AI tools from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, companies can automatically stay current with the latest generation of machine intelligence to continually optimise business operations such as financial reporting, claims processing, order and inventory management, legal documentation, customer onboarding, and practically any other line of business.  

IDP software that leverages AI is transforming businesses in several ways:

·  Improved efficiency: By automating document processing tasks such as classification, data extraction, indexing, and validation, businesses can reduce error-prone manual work and increase operational efficiency.

·  Enhanced accuracy: AI-powered IDP software can accurately extract and process data from various types of documents, such as invoices, claims forms, and contracts, which translates to a significant reduction of business risk in terms of data accuracy and compliance.

·  Higher profitability: Businesses can reduce labour costs associated with manual data entry and document handling, while leveraging AI to identify trends in their data, to identify trends in their data, for better decision making and forecasting.

·  Better customer experience: IDP software can help businesses provide better customer experiences by enabling faster response times and more accurate information retrieval.

·  Actionable data insights: The ability to quickly and accurately extract valuable insights from various document types gives businesses a deeper understanding of their operations, customers and market trends. This information can be used more immediately and confidently for strategic decision-making, process optimisation, and identifying new business opportunities.

·  Future-ready operations: As AI evolves, an IDP solution must evolve along with it. For most businesses, the right IDP solution is one that improves at the speed of Google, Microsoft, or Amazon by integrating with these leading AI platforms.

As this technology continues to reshape industries, businesses have no choice but to embrace it to drive efficiency gains and stay competitive. By leveraging IDP software that integrates with the latest AI tools, organisations can automate data onboarding, improve speed and accuracy, reduce costs, deliver better customer experiences, and gain valuable insights for strategic decision-making.

AI is more than just a trend. It’s a sea change, and many experts are calling it the most significant technological development in human history. Late adopters will be left behind. The time is now to harness the potential of IDP and AI to drive your business towards lasting productivity gains and an ROI that can pay dividends for years to come.

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