Examples of AI in Non-Tech Industries

In 2008, the beverage company Coca Cola launched Coca-Cola Freestyle, a fountain drink dispenser, that enables customers to mix up the different flavours and beverages listed in the platform’s portfolio via an interactive touch screen display.

 

This in turn led to the birth of the Cherry Sprite flavour as Coca Cola garnered quite some useful information regarding their customer preferences through the help of these self-service machines, which led them to launch products as per these preferences. 

 

This is just one of the many examples of the ways that AI can be leveraged by non-tech industries. 

 

Issues however big or small, faced by businesses can be resolved in the blink of an eye with AI becoming the savior. And no I don’t just mean the issues faced by tech industries. Even Non-Tech Industries have been making full use of the technology in their operations to achieve their goals.

 

Let’s take the example of Ping An, an insurance company based in China. The platform allows its customers to apply for loans via their app. These customers are required to respond to procedural queries regarding their income and repayment plans via video and their facial expressions are monitored to assess whether or not they are being truthful. This helps in locating customers that require more investigation. 

 

Contrary to popular belief, AI isn’t always a threat to human jobs, rather it might just prove to be very useful in simplifying and optimizing them. 

 

(Check out how AI is used in our daily lives)

 

Examples of Non-Tech Industries using AI

 

Be it the food industry, retail, healthcare, education or Travel, there’s no limit to the range of non-tech industries that AI is leveraged in. We’ve listed some prominent ones below :

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How are Non-Tech industries using AI?

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1. AI in Food Industry

 

AI offers massive potential in revolutionizing the manner in which restaurants manage aspects like making the menu, managing inventory and selecting their positioning strategies. 

 

• Some examples include TOMRA a recycling company that makes use of AI technology in its production processes, its sorting machinery is based on sensors, it is capable of noting and getting rid of any foreign or alien items from their production line, and responding to any alterations in the color, taste, moisture or odour of the food.

 

• Another example is that of KFC which set up its first AI powered store in Beijing towards the end of December, 2016. The store had the goal of maximizing its collection of smart restaurants and advancing its consumer’s dining experience. 

 

It enables its customers to take pictures using a machine that evaluates them, recognises the face of the diner, their age, mood and sex and other  characteristics and then suggests them food accordingly.

 

It also sets up meals and concludes the process of ordering. The very first smart restaurant launched by KFC was set up in Beijing, with KFC joining hands with Baidu Inc. 
 

• Another interesting example is that of Kellogg Company. The global food manufacturer set up an AI powered ecommerce portal termed as “Bear Naked Custom” that enables people to customize and create their own granola with more than 50 ingredients at their service.  

 

Thousands of ingredient alternatives that can be possible have been analyzed by the portal and suggestions are made by AI regarding likely ingredients that can be added to the user’s granola while input is also offered regarding the taste. 

 

A feedback loop is conceived from the data that has been generated in reference to the flavor combinations, the customer’s preferences, and the frequency of the times a particular combination has been re-ordered. 

 

2. AI in Healthcare

 

From encouraging preventative medicines and being a catalyst for the discovery of new drugs, contributing towards cancer research and treatment, to accelerating the discovery and development of genetic medicine, there are umpteen roles that AI has come to play in the field of Healthcare.

 

• One example is that of the outbreak of the ebola virus in West Africa which prompted Atomwise, a biotech platform to partner with the University of Toronto and IBM for working towards a treatment solution for the virus infection. 

 

A drug candidate was discovered by Atomwise which could help in blocking the virus’s entry into healthy cells. The AI analysis took place in less than 24 hours and kickstarted the advancement of a treatment for the Ebola virus.

 

• SkinVision, a medical service, allows the user to detect skin cancer at its early stage merely by taking photos of the user’s skin through the phone and to reach a doctor at the appropriate time.

 

• Yet another example of AI in Healthcare is Oncora Medical. To tackle the problem caused by the absence of a convenient digital database for gathering and organizing EHRs in case of radiation therapy, Oncora Medical came to the rescue. 

 

• The digital health company supplied a data analytics platform that gathers the suitable medical information of the patients, appraises the offered healthcare quality and ensures that an intensive oncology result is facilitated to help the clinicians in proper decision-making in the area of radiation therapy.  

 

• IBM, the multinational technology company has been one of the biggest patrons committed towards joining hands with leading research institutes and hospitals like the Mayo Clinic or the New York Genome Center to advance technology in the world of medicine and in revolutionizing the modus operandi of the teaching, research and practice of medicine. 

 

3. AI in Education

 

From making use of AI for customizing and optimizing sessions, to generating evaluation tests with optimum quality and to ease the task of educators, there are numerous applications of AI in Education. 

 

• One example is Duolingo. The language learning platform tests its students with an AI powered placement test which evaluates them by offering exercises that they would actually be taking up in the course. 

 

That way, in case a student has learned German in high school for 2 years, they do not need to start learning the course at its basic stage. Every next question in the test is selected in accordance with the previous question, depending on if the student answered it correctly or not. 

 

The optimization and customization of sessions is another area where Duolingo makes use of AI. The language app is backed by a feature which keeps track of the errors that students commit while practicing new words.

 

This allows the feature to pinpoint when a particular term was forgotten. It also assesses the number of times a student has seen a word in the curriculum and the amount of times they have correctly answered it. 

 

• Yet another example of AI in Education is Carnegie Learning, an EdTech company. To give its learners a better grasp over math concepts, the platform leverages responsive AI which records the habits of the students and customizes their learning experience to help them in understanding the subject.  

 

It also keeps track of how the students are progressing, detecting any issues in learning, and supplies feedback as well as personal study suggestions. 

 

(Check out - AI in Language Learning)

 

4. AI in Retail

 

From making it easier for customers to shop and pay for items from physical stores, offering optimum customer services to offering advanced platforms for the customer to carry out online shopping, there are many areas where AI has proved to be useful in the Retail sector.

 

• One excellent example is Amazon, which set up the Just Walk Out shopping technology that gets to work whenever a shopper picks up an item from the store’s shelf. 

 

• Another example is LoweBot, which is a customer service robot by Lowe. It makes use of NLP for responding to customer queries. For instance, if we ask the LoweBot where batteries are located, the robot will travel across the store to show us. It can also facilitate details of what is in stock in the store.

 

• Olay’s Skin Advisor platform is another useful example of AI in Retail. The AI powered platform supplies estimates of skin-age and suggests skincare remedies from selfies. It makes use of deep learning for assessing the issues it comes across from the photo and the data offered by users for coming up with skincare solutions and customized items. 

 

5. AI in Travel

From helping out users with their booking of flights, hotels and rentals, setting up day to day itineraries to offering advanced customer care through chatbots, there are numerous perks that AI offers in the Travel universe.

 

• Considering how stressful and exhausting planning for travel can get, we all need something to help us in our travel planning. This is what Travel Triangle, a travel agency in Haryana, India, stepped in to offer a solution to. 

 

By making use of a Trip Planner Virtual Assistant, the agency allows its visitors to plan their full holiday in accordance with what they prefer in terms of the activities they wish to take part in, their budget, the occasion of travel, the location they would like and so on.  The assistant also helps to arrange a day-to-day itinerary to accompany the customer for their vacation. 

 

• Yet another example is Hopper. Hopper is a travel company that makes use of AI for predicting the most minimal price for booking a hotel, flight or vacation home and car rentals. The platform’s AI goes through a long list of bookings to offer the latest prices.  

 

By making use of the previous data of flights and hotels, the platform can also make suggestions to the user regarding whether their booking is at its lowest price yet or if they can expect lower prices ahead. 

 

• AI also offers enhanced customer care in the field of Travel. For instance, a chatbot termed as Edward is used by London’s Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel. Stockholm’s Clarion Hotel Amaranten also makes use of a chatbot that is based on Alexa.

 

(Recommended blog - AI in Mental Health)

 

In the present era dominated by digitization and automation, the application of AI definitely offers an edge both for tech and non-tech related businesses.