Across industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how companies operate, compete, and innovate. Whether you’re in healthcare, finance, marketing, manufacturing, or retail, AI has become a critical tool for staying ahead.
“I have a strong belief that the future of business is going to be AI-powered,” says Harvard Business School Professor Karim Lakhani, who co-teaches the online course AI Essentials for Business with HBS Professor Marco Iansiti. “There’s not one organization, one role that will not be touched by AI tools.”
If you’re ready to implement these technologies in your business operations, here’s why AI training is important and how it can help you maintain a competitive edge.
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AI is here to stay, so nearly every industry needs professionals who understand it. AI training equips you with the knowledge and skills to harness the technology’s power, allowing you to innovate and solve complex problems traditional methods can’t address.
For example, AI is transforming:
- Marketing: Marketers can leverage AI’s consumer behavior and demographic insights to create highly personalized product or service offers.
- Manufacturing: Manufacturers can use AI to analyze machinery and shop floor data to predict or prevent breakdowns.
- Retail: Retailers can enhance the customer experience and scale their support by adopting AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants that provide fast, personalized assistance and offer product recommendations.
- Health care: Health care providers can utilize AI to analyze vast amounts of data to identify the best drug candidates, predict their effectiveness, and enhance their design.
Regardless of your industry or role, AI training can empower you to test and implement new technologies effectively, ensuring you and your organization remain agile in a rapidly evolving market. Here are five ways AI training can help you effectively compete in your industry.
5 Ways AI Training Can Help You Compete in Your Industry
1. Enhances Data-Driven Decision Making
AI training can equip you with analytical skills to better understand how to interpret data from machine learning algorithms, statistical models, and other tools. By mastering these techniques, you can leverage data to make more informed and strategic decisions that align with your business goals and objectives.
For instance, the popular streaming service Netflix uses AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze user data—including viewing habits, ratings, and search queries—to make production decisions like creating the highly popular TV show House of Cards.
This data-driven approach not only enhances user satisfaction but allows Netflix to invest in content more likely to resonate with its audience, maintaining its market dominance—despite intense competition from platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max.
As industries increasingly rely on data to drive business strategy, understanding AI-based analysis is essential to staying ahead of market trends and making decisions that maximize your organization’s impact.
Related: 4 Types of Data Analytics to Improve Decision-Making
2. Automates Routine Tasks
Through AI training, you can learn how to automate mundane and time-consuming processes such as:
- Data entry
- Invoice processing
- Customer service responses
- Report generation
Coca-Cola, for example, leverages AI to automate data analysis tasks, such as tracking consumer preferences and generating product performance reports. This allows the company to quickly respond to market trends while freeing employees to focus on product innovations like alcoholic sodas and electrolyte water.
By automating routine tasks with AI, your organization can operate more efficiently, allowing your team to concentrate on higher-impact initiatives. Following Coca-Cola’s example, you can enhance your operational effectiveness and better position your business to meet future industry needs.
3. Improves Customer Experience
AI training can help you design and implement AI-driven customer service solutions that enhance user engagement, provide personalized experiences addressing customer needs, and improve retention.
Ant Group, an Alibaba affiliate, exemplifies this with the launch of MYbank, a digital banking service focused on providing financing solutions for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It uses AI to enable secure and efficient financial transactions.
MYbank can quickly process loan applications without human intervention using a sophisticated machine learning engine. This technology has enabled MYbank to provide financing services to over 53 SMEs in China, enhancing financial inclusion for businesses that traditionally struggle to access credit.
MYbank's AI-driven approach plays a crucial role in supporting the financial needs of a diverse range of customers, making financial services more accessible on a large scale.
“We believe AI can play a really, really important role in making financial services more inclusive,” says Dr. Alan Qi, Ant Group’s vice president and AI chief scientist in AI Essentials for Business. “Only because of the power of machine learning or AI, we can make the service more scalable, more inclusive.”
This data-driven approach allows Ant Group to continually innovate and optimize its services, ensuring the company meets its global customer base’s diverse needs.
Related: Understanding 3 Common Types of Customer Needs
4. Strengthens Risk Management
AI training not only covers how to implement these technologies but also how to address risk management strategies related to cybersecurity.
In AI Essentials for Business, Iansiti warns business leaders of these data-related risks.
“It’s not surprising that, given the huge reliance of digital operating models on data, data breaches are becoming more and more of a challenge,” Iansiti says in the course. “Its challenges are accelerating as the amount of data–personal information that is stored by leading companies–continues to increase.”
Developing data analysis, anomaly detection, and real-time decision-making skills are essential for managing cybersecurity risks. These capabilities are vital in scenarios like those faced by the banking company J.P. Morgan Chase, where analyzing large datasets and identifying irregular patterns could enhance fraud detection and prevention.
In fact, J.P. Morgan Chase uses AI and machine learning to enhance its cybersecurity capabilities. By analyzing vast amounts of transaction data in real-time, the company can quickly detect anomalies—such as unusual transaction amounts or locations—that often indicate fraudulent activity.
This proactive use of AI in risk management not only safeguards the bank’s assets but also ensures its customers’ security and trust, maintaining the bank’s reputation in a highly competitive industry.
Understanding and applying AI in risk management is crucial for any organization aiming to protect its assets and maintain customer trust. Investing in AI training can equip your team with the tools and knowledge to detect and respond to potential threats more effectively.
Related: Listen to Jen Stave, launch director of Harvard’s Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute, discuss AI's transformative impact across industries on The Parlor Room podcast.
5. Optimizes Supply Chain and Logistics
AI training can provide valuable insights into optimizing supply chain management and logistics. It can help you more efficiently forecast demand, manage inventory levels, and optimize delivery routes, leading to significant cost savings and improved operational efficiencies.
Retail giant Walmart utilizes AI and machine learning to enhance its supply chain efficiency by analyzing factors such as historical sales data, weather patterns, and local events to more accurately predict customer demand. This enables Walmart to optimize its inventory levels and ensure products are available when and where needed.
In addition, Walmart uses AI to optimize delivery routes, which can reduce fuel consumption and improve delivery times. This AI-powered approach to supply chain management allows Walmart to operate more efficiently, reduce costs, and maintain its competitive edge in the retail market.
By incorporating AI into your supply chain and logistics operations, you can achieve similar efficiencies and cost savings, positioning your business to outpace competitors.
Take Your Organization to the Next Level with AI
From enhancing decision-making and automating routine tasks to improving customer experiences and strengthening risk management, AI provides the tools to innovate and excel in any industry. To remain competitive, you must not only understand these technologies but also know how to implement them effectively.
An effective method is enrolling in AI training courses. HBS Online’s AI Essentials for Business course offers a comprehensive overview of AI-powered firms to help you harness your organization’s full potential. By enrolling, you’ll gain the insights and skills to lead your organization through the complexities of AI adoption, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve and drive success.
Do you want to learn how to compete in the age of AI? Explore our online course AI Essentials for Business—one of our online digital transformation courses—and download our online learning success guide to prepare for the program experience.
