AI and IoT, the Usain Bolt of technology

The Internet of Things refers to objects that communicate with each other. Central heating, fridges, toasters and dog collars are being connected through the IoT. What is its impact on business and how many businesses are enhancing the use of IoT? This blog will give you all the information you need to know about AI and IoT in business. 

According to Serviceteam IT’s Beyond the Cloud: UK Technology Research 2018 in partnership with Doogheno, 60% of respondents are using, deploying to researching IoT. This made IoT the second most used and research emerging technology in the UK – this was compared to Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Robotic Process Automation. The research was completed over a range of industries including education, government, insurance and scientific research. Therefore, the findings present the IoT becoming mainstream across all UK business sectors.  

The exception to IoT was AI where 78% of respondents were using, deploying or researching the technology.  

These two technologies were rivalled by Blockchain, Edge and RPA. 

What does this mean in terms of business? 

To answer this question, you would have to look specifically at each industry. For example, in the scientific research industry, Serviceteam IT found that the manufacturing department identified the emerging technology requirement for reduced cost. By contrast, in the government and defence sector, the use of emerging technologies surrounded expansion, efficiency and improved service quality and responsiveness.  

However, a very common use of IoT in business is customer engagement. AT&T provide a business example: if an appliance needs to be serviced or fails, a message can be dispatched to both the customer and to the manufacturer’s customer service system. This can extend to other devices including security system and light bulbs.  

In terms of AI, Ocado has announced the world’s first AI-based fraud detection system for online grocery purchases. This tracks orders which have been delivered but not paid for and determines whether it was a malicious act.  

It is inevitable that more businesses will use this technology in the future, especially UK businesses. However, the IoT is not in the clear yet. There are still a lot of concerns that you will need to contend with and consider before you implement IoT within your business environment. 

Although machine IoT is relatively uncontested, using IoT for the efficiently of people is highly controversial, such as using an employee’s security access card to track where they are in a building.   

AI also has its pitfalls. Its main downfall is that the technology can be hacked. Forbes provided examples of this including; fooling autonomous vehicles to misinterpret stop signs as the speed limit, bypassing facial recognition, misclassifying machine learning based-medical predictions and faking voice commands.   

Despite these negatives, AI and IoT can also work together.  Google’s new TPU chip means that IoT devices can run machine learning models. If data analysis works at the edge of the network, it is more efficient to train the machine to learn algorithms in the cloud. The example used is a CCTV camera; an Edge TPU chip would capture a video but also complete facial recognition before the feed arrives at the server.  

Antony Passemard, head of product management for Cloud IoT commented “we are the only cloud vendor today to have combined our AI research, our software research, and our hardware research to build together a hardware that is truly optimised for the latest and greatest AI technology, 

“This is a game changer for IoT. This is really bringing intelligence to the edge in a very efficient manner in terms of watts consumed or price point,”. 

Whether you are for or against these technologies, they are creeping their way into business and changing the way they are run. It is time to get on board and do some research or you potentially face being left behind in the business eat business world.