If Your Business Can’t Compete With AI, Then Quit

Make no mistake. AI is going to take some jobs. It might even take entire industries and revolutionize the way we do business. If you’re worried about how your business will hold up in the coming era of machines, you aren’t alone. Your business isn’t immune, but it will require you to reconsider what you offer your customers. If your business can’t keep up and compete with AI initiatives and you aren’t willing to pivot with the times, it could be time to call it quits. 

A lot of talk about AI borders on hysterical, but the good news is that machines don’t do everything better than humans. In fact, some see the coming days as “augmented intelligence” rather than artificial intelligence, forcing us to reconcile how we can stay relevant and what humans still bring to the table.

[Related Article: ML Operationalization: From What and Why? to How and Who?]

If you’re ready to reconsider your business operations, you could be in an excellent position to ride out the transition and come out just as competitive as ever. Let’s consider three industries that could become extinct to demonstrate how you could pivot in your own product or service.

If Your Service Involves Advice, Become a Teacher

Traditional advisory positions are set to disappear as the big data processing of machines becomes more widely available. Machines can take that data and present it directly to your customer without you ever having to crunch a number or enter a field on a spreadsheet. 

If your business revolves around this type of advisory role, you’ll need to transition to teaching. No, that doesn’t mean you join a university or set foot back in your elementary school. Instead, your product will involve helping your client understand how machines came to the conclusions they did.

For example, think of insurance. AI has made risk management easier, but we still need a human to help us understand those conclusions and to offer advice for implementation. A fancy dashboard does nothing if someone doesn’t understand how to take those conclusions and run with them.

Humans also need to be present to form the right question. Big data processing won’t help if a business can’t find the question they need for the results they want. Your gentle guidance for how and why to craft the right question, plus what to do when the result is available helps you stay relevant.

If You’re In Healthcare, Consider Consulting

Healthcare is a field ripe for disruption. AI will soon handle menial tasks from records to diagnostics, meaning a large portion of the industry stands to lose out to machines. However, machines don’t yet understand what they’re seeing or processing, so the most prominent area for humans to remain on top is in the field of consulting.

AI could free up physicians from having to read records to make diagnostic decisions. However, they’ll have more time to work one on one with patients to build treatment plans and assess how effective those plans are.

AI will handle record-keeping, but we’ll still need humans to consider how to keep hospitals from losing money in unpaid bills or insurance negotiations. If administrators don’t have to oversee those types of tasks, they’re free to brainstorm and implement a higher-level strategy.

Working with AI as augmented intelligence could give us the speed and efficiency we need to make our creativity work for us. We need time and space to build these big ideas, and allowing machines to take over what eats up our day could give us the space for breakthroughs.

If You’re in Manufacturing, Pivot to Supervising

Production is filled with robots, but we still need human eyes and the human ability to learn to ensure things run smoothly. Customers that rely on robotics to ensure production will also rely on the expertise of a company to ensure compliance, minimize downtime, and schedule reprogramming.

You may not be involved in the day to day pieces of production, but your expertise with the programming models or reading IoT related automatic maintenance could keep a business from crashing during the highest point of the season. Customers want their robots to work, so taking that stress off their plate is an excellent way to stay relevant within the warehouse.

IoT might cause you to go out of business if you don’t understand how to work with it. Consider how you can pivot to work with those machines to provide higher-order skills and keep relevant in the coming change.

[Related Article: A Manager’s Guide to Starting a Computer Vision Program]

AI Will Kill Your Business, But Only If You Let It

AI will cause a lot of upheavals, but deciding to embrace this change could help you ride it out. Businesses that refuse to accept a change in business operations or who sleep on new technology that can streamline services and products could find themselves out of a job.

If you’re willing to embrace change, however, AI could revolutionize your business for the better. So, don’t be afraid. Be proactive.