14 Applications Of Artificial Intelligence That You’ve Never Even Thought Of

You probably already know that some of the applications you use every day use artificial intelligence, such as Netflix, Spotify, and Siri, among others. Or maybe you’ve heard of robots that play chess, poker, and other board games better than any human could.

But that’s nothing compared to what you’re about to read…

New uses and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) are developed every day, bringing us closer to an unparalleled future. A future that we could’ve never imagined.

Why wait any longer, let’s get started!

 

1. The Latest Musical Hit

Has it ever occurred to you that artificial intelligence could help create hit songs?

The single “Not Easy” by Ambassadors, Elle King, and Wiz Khalifa reached number 4 on iTunes’ Hot Tracks list. So now you must be asking yourself, where was AI used?

Well, the single was actually based on findings obtained with big data. Artificial intelligence searched through millions of conversations, newspaper titles, and lectures based on the main theme of the song: heartbreak.

Then, after they defined the theme, machine learning algorithms programmed to create music found different musical elements, which gave them ideas on how this piece should sound.

 

2. The Chef With The Most Recipes In The World

If that last point shocked you, now image having a virtual chef by your side next time you cook, guiding you through each step of the recipe to prepare that culinary delight you never thought possible.

 “Chef Watson’s” artificial intelligence will help you create a recipe based on the ingredients you already have or on something you’re craving. Its algorithms will go through which dishes can be prepared with your ingredients and then give you several options so you can choose the dish you want, along with instructions on how to prepare it.

3. Self-Driving Cars

Have you ever heard of cars that drive without a driver, that are only guided by artificial intelligence technologies and automatic learning?

Tesla was one of the first automotive brands to launch a self-driving vehicle, and Audi, Cadillac, and Volvo are already developing their own models.

But that’s not all. Uber already made the first 50,000-beer delivery with a self-driving truck.

 

4. The Fortuneteller That Will Know It Before You

One day, AI may know more about people than you ever imagined.

Do you want some examples of detected issues that we humans might have overlooked? Well here are 3!

AI can assertively predict if someone is gay or straight based on photographs of their face. A Stanford University study discovered that an algorithm that can correctly identify which men are gay and which are not with 81% accuracy, and 74% accuracy for women.

But that’s not all. Facebook is using artificial intelligence bots that can save the lives of people at risk of committing suicide. As an article by Fast Company explains, the company announced a pilot project in the United States that used AI to proactively identify Facebook posts that could indicate suicidal tendencies. Facebook’s AI technology identified over 100 cases that required intervention.

How is it possible that these kinds of things can be anticipated or predicted with this level of accuracy?

Even if you’re thinking about quitting your current job, AI may know it before Human Resources does. IBM has a solution that uses predictive analytics to identify personnel retention problems. This program can find common factors that cause its staff to quit, creating a quality score for each employee based on the projected probability that they will leave the company soon.

 

5. Photographs That Become Purchases

How many times have you seen something you like, so you take a photo of to find it or something similar in stores?

It doesn’t have to be so complicated anymore. Amazon, the giant e-commerce platform, has already incorporated a visual search option on its mobile application. Just take a photo of the item you want, and it will show you something very similar or identical. Buy it right away and it’s already in your hands.

Thanks to AI, the time lag between those “moments of inspiration” and the eventual purchase will be eliminated, making the transition between seeing a product and buying it happen without any complications.

 

6. The Smartest Investor

In 2009, Ira Sages from Businessweek magazine challenged the Director of Quid AI, Bob Goodson, to program a computer to choose 50 companies that no one had heard of and turn them into the most successful startups.

Almost 8 years later, the magazine reviewed the list to see how accurate “Goodson and his machine” were. The results surprised even the creator: Evernote, Spotify, Etsy, Zynga, Palantir, Cloudera, OPOWER, and the list goes on…

20% of the companies the computer chose were valued at a billion dollars.

 Would you trust an investor like this?

 

7. A Better World

Some people are afraid of AI, asking themselves, ”Will we lose our jobs? And then what?”

You should also explore the positive things that it can do for us humans.

Like what? Like save the ecosystem and prevent adverse effects that threaten human and animal life.

An extensive article published in The Guardian exemplified several ways in which AI can help us to prevent future damage and better understand how to address developmental needs while focusing on sustainability.

The article talks about how companies like Microsoft are already using AI to study land-use patterns with terrain maps. A deep understanding of these patterns allows it to make better decisions on the use of the land and implement proper preservation techniques. Scientists would be able to use the information obtained to preserve biodiversity and the ecosystem. EarthCube is precisely one of these projects.

 

8. A Superhuman Doctor

AI is not only able to save certain areas of the ecosystem, as we already mentioned, but it can also save human lives…

Through AI and deep learning, doctors can promptly diagnose cancer, before it’s too late. The Chinese startup Infervision is using deep learning and image recognition technologies (like Facebook uses to recognize faces) to diagnose possible signs of lung cancer with X-rays.

Now the question is, will AI only be able to diagnose cancer, or will it also be able to treat it?

Some researchers argue that an artificial intelligence assisted cure for cancer is less than a decade away.

 

9. Life On Other Planets?

Ask artificial intelligence.

NASA is already using AI to look for life on other planets, which will be the key for “Mars 2020,” the mission where the Red Planet will be explored more thoroughly.

The devices they’ll send, better known as rovers, will be able to explore Mars’ terrain in more detail and reveal the properties of the planet’s elements to determine the possibility of life with more certainty.

 

10. The Marketing Guru

AI is becoming the “right hand” of marketers and retailers around the world.

So, if you’re asking yourself what kind of things it can do… this article goes over, in detail, every one of its possible applications in the exclusive fields of digital marketing and sales. So, we recommend that you give it a thorough read since implementing AI in your company will bring you more benefits that you can imagine. It’s a revolution for the better.

But first, let’s see some amazing summarized examples!

Through AI and machine learning, the most profitable audiences can be found for any ad. This means that intelligent algorithms are able to learn, detect, and predict which types of users are more likely to become clients at a lower cost per acquisition.

Adext is a software as a service that applies AI to find the most profitable audience for any ad. Using machine learning algorithms it manages, optimizes, and automatically updates your digital campaign budget in over 20 different demographic groups per ad and on several platforms. With 480 daily adjustments to every single ad, its advanced AI has been able to increase ads’ conversion performance by an average of 1265%.

With respect to content marketing, more and more intelligent tools are being created that provide, and even perform, the task of creating content. In fact, a few years ago, Gartner predicted that by 2018, 20% of content would be generated by machines. So, now that it’s 2018, you may have already read posts on social media or articles that were written by artificial intelligence.

Organizations like BBC, CBS, the New York Times, Forbes, Associated Press and Reuters are already using AI on a daily basis to develop and present their news publications to the public. So, if you’re still skeptical about this, just check out tools like the Hemingway App, Articoolo, Wordsmith, Quill, or Wibbitz.

These kinds of advances are also tangible in e-mail marketing, where AI can personalize e-mails based on preferences and user behaviors to obtain a better interaction that can turn into a sale. Companies such as Phrasee and Persado even determine what e-mail subject, text for the e-mail body, calls-to-action, and sending times will help prompt the user to make the desired action.

And if that didn’t surprise you, just wait until we tell you that AI can even design your website from scratch, like Grid does. The only thing you have to do is provide the text, images, and calls-to-action. The app is in charge of everything else and will make your website look professional and 100% functional.

 

11. The Sales And Customer Service Genie

We’ve already seen how AI is revolutionizing marketing… but sales are not far behind.

What’s the best price for a product or service? With automatic machine learning, price trends can be correlated with sales trends through an algorithm that aligns other factors, such as category management and inventory levels. The establishment of dynamic prices driven by AI will mean higher profit margins for companies.

AI is also becoming a retailer’s best friend since there are already AI platforms that monitor the habits of sales representatives, giving them recommendations to improve their performance.

These intelligent CRMs allow them to have a better overview of all the elements involved in the sales process and discover sales opportunities in an unprecedented way. For example, it’s been proven that cold emails are 20% more effective on Tuesdays, and that making a follow-up call 10 minutes after an online registration leads to more conversions.

What about customer service?

For many companies that offer a monthly subscription service (such as Netflix, Spotify, gyms, etc.), attracting clients is only half the process. Keeping them is another story. Predictive analysis can be used to know which clients will unsubscribe, making it possible to contact them ahead of time to offer them incentives and provide them with specialized care to change their minds.

In this same field, chatbots have been extremely useful since they make it possible to quickly and efficiently respond to the customers’ main worries, questions, or problems. The most advanced chatbots are already able to answer open questions by using the natural language process and automatic learning to respond in a human-like way.

Even brands like Sephora and H&M use chatbots that serve as sales consultants and, believe it or not, they’re extremely useful to the users.

Sephora, for example, lets its users “try out” their cosmetic products (such as lipstick, eyeshadows, highlighters, etc.) on a photo of themselves that they share with the bot. The bot’s artificial intelligence technology can identify the user’s facial features and then use augmented reality to apply these makeup tests.

On the other hand, H&M helps users who visit its e-commerce platform find exactly what they’re looking for by making suggestions on what they might like or look good on them according to their preferences.

 

12. A Non-Human Language…

Facebook has recently started using machine learning to teach its chatbots to converse and negotiate amongst themselves (chatbot to chatbot). And so far, everything indicates that the bots are very good at making deals… in fact, the situation reached a point where the bots were communicating with each other in their own language. Interesting, right?

 

13. The Best Flight…

The travel and tourism industry is notoriously competitive. Flight prices can change from one minute to the next. So, how do you know the best time to buy your ticket?

Sometimes it’s better to book the flight ahead of time, while other times it’s better to wait until just before the departure date to find cheaper tickets.

This is where the Hopper application saw a great opportunity before anyone else did. Through predictive analytics driven by artificial intelligence, the app is able to predict price patterns and alert travelers of the cheapest times to buy flights to their destinations.

 

It monitors billions of prices every day and, based on the data history of each route, it can anticipate how the price trend will evolve. This way, you can configure notifications that’ll remind you to book your flight at the exact time the price is right! Isn’t it amazing?

 

14. In Charge Of Your Accounting And Financing

If you haven’t studied a field related to these two areas, they must look like a headache waiting to happen. So why not automate your accounting system and financial reports?

One of the tools that AI applies to these areas is Smacc. All you have to do is upload your receipts, and the platform will convert them into a legible format for computers, encrypt them, and then put them into your account. It will also learn to monitor invoices, sales, and costs, as well as your liquidity.

 

Did These Artificial Intelligence Applications Surprise You?

Without a doubt! Many of them are things that we never even imagined. It’s true that technology advances by leaps and bounds.

Personally, I’m not partial to a fatalistic future like science fiction movies make AI out to be, where the human is left behind because of AI. But I am very aware that the challenge will be discovering how humans can team up with artificial intelligence to release its full strategic and creative potential.

By doing this, we’d be able to leave AI to do all the tasks it can definitely do better than a human ever could. On this topic, we have a fascinating article that better elaborates on this point of view, which you might find interesting: Imagine Becoming 1 Billion Times Smarter: Merging With Artificial Intelligence.

So, if you enjoyed reading that article, don’t forget to share it with your friends!

By the way, we even have more posts that talk about AI, which you may also like:

• 9 Applications Of Artificial Intelligence In Digital Marketing That Will Revolutionize Your Business
• Why Machine Learning Is Changing the Advertising Industry
• 10 Artificial Intelligence Technologies That’ll Rule 2019
• 7 Awesome Ways In Which Artificial Intelligence Will Empower Your Business
• These 10 Things Use Artificial Intelligence And You’ve Probably Never Realized It
• “How Many Jobs Will Be Lost Because Of Artificial Intelligence?” Is The Wrong Question
• What Is Artificial Intelligence? Here’s A Guide With All You Wanted To Know

 

What about you? Have you heard of any other surprising way in which AI is used? Share it here by writing a comment!