Artificial Intelligence in Everyday Life: What You Need to Know

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has witnessed an explosive pace of progress and application in the last few years. It has virtually changed how entire industries operate, giving rise to new ways of doing business and working. While the concept of AI has existed in some form since the 1950s, AI in its current avatar is a relatively new phenomenon. This makes the pace of its adoption across diverse industries, verticals and processes extremely noteworthy.

In this article, we will discuss the growing influence of artificial intelligence on everyday processes and experiences and explain the various impacts of this technology on our lives.

AI in consumer electronics

AI technology has been visible in consumer electronics like smartphones, smart home devices and personal assistants for nearly a decade. From predictive typing to enhanced photography and language translation, AI has been at the centre of almost every "smart" feature that makes a smartphone. Similarly, the advent of AI-powered personal assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant, have made it possible to "talk" to technology in new ways and operate it with simple voice commands. 

Today, you can find AI in speakers, televisions, wearable gadgets, refrigerators, thermostats, security cameras and even the lighting system. We are truly moving into an era of smart homes, where AI in different devices can interact with people and each other effortlessly, creating a living experience according to your lifestyle and habits. One of the biggest reasons AI has taken off in this category of products is the enhanced user experience it provides by personalising services and making devices more intuitive. AI can also make devices more efficient through smarter smartphone battery management or optimum power consumption in-home devices.

As AI advances in lives and homes, you can expect more automation of repetitive tasks that can be scheduled without action. For example, some practical ways this will pan out include adjusting the thermostat temperature automatically before you arrive home, optimising the speaker and lighting settings for a perfect movie experience and activating large devices with simple hand gestures or voice commands.


AI in online shopping and services

While extensive data and analytical tools have always been the cornerstone for improving the online shopping experience, AI has catapulted these efforts to the stratosphere. With hyper-personalised recommendations, enhanced visual search, real-time price revision and accurate customer segmentation, the e-commerce shopping experience has radically changed in the last few years.

Empowered with rich customer data, online retailers can create uniquely personalised marketing campaigns for maximum engagement and conversion, retarget shoppers effectively and customise the shopping experience across multiple devices. Personalised marketing has also become more impactful as AI-powered tools continually perform A/B testing to assess which marketing messaging is more engaging.

Another vertical of the online shopping experience that has been an early adopter of AI is customer service. Many companies have automated solving customer grievances without human intervention using AI-run chatbots. This has been possible due to the advances in natural language processing (NLP) that allow humans to interact with technology seamlessly.

Furthermore, due to the repetitive nature of queries that customers pose (for example, "What’s my order status?" or "When will I get my refund?"), it has been relatively easier for organisations to use chatbots to assist people in finding the correct information. Initially, these chatbots could not handle complex queries and gave inconsistent user experiences. However, with the progress in the past few years, customer service chatbots have significantly increased their performance and accuracy.

AI in transportation

With the use of AI in transportation, what was once sci-fi fantasy has become a reality today. Although most people associate AI in transportation with driverless cars, it is also extremely valuable in overall traffic management and making public transport systems more efficient. The improvements in the technology that enable more accurate object tracking, motion detection and safety recognition have allowed self-driving vehicles to ply on the roads. With reduced errors, increased safety and better compliance, almost all major automobile makers are expected to roll out autonomous vehicles in the next few years.

AI is already used for managing traffic and mobility in many large cities. Using data from hundreds of sensors and cameras, AI-powered analytical tools create real-time traffic patterns to predict congestion, suggest alternatives and redirect traffic to remove blockages. The same technology allows the often-used navigation applications to provide more accurate travel time predictions and offer the fastest or most fuel-efficient route. AI is also making inroads in managing parking sites, monitoring road conditions and automatic license plate recognition, all of which can make law enforcement easier. There is still a lot of potential for its usage in this industry, and one can expect AI to significantly alter how we travel in the future.


AI in healthcare


AI tools and services can help ease the pressure on the stressed healthcare infrastructure. Based on the advances in NLP and rule-based expert systems in AI, many healthcare providers are using this technology to support diagnosis, simplify treatment planning and enhance patient care management. This can help improve the diagnosis accuracy, speed up recovery timelines, improve patient experience and enhance utilisation of resources. 

While integrating these tools into existing clinical operations has been slow, modern software vendors provide comprehensive solutions with these technologies embedded in the central system. AI-powered robotics have also been deployed to help surgeons perform complex surgeries worldwide.

One healthcare domain that started using AI early on and is reaping the benefits is medical research and drug development. AI has been successfully harnessed to reign in high costs, analyse large datasets quickly, improve research efficiency and speed up drug development timelines. This has improved drug development and delivery efficiency, enhanced precision medicine and made it possible to treat otherwise incurable diseases.

Another area where the healthcare industry has leveraged AI to an impressive degree is optimising administrative workflows, digitising patient records and using big data analysis to prevent fraud in insurance claims. With time, you can expect more digitisation of traditional healthcare services and more automation in nursing, surges and medicine administration.

AI in banking and finance

Banks, financial institutions and insurance providers have used AI-powered systems for many years and are uniquely positioned to leverage their vast customer data. Banks use AI in various ways, from automating baking services, which improve customer experience, to detecting fraud while ensuring regulatory compliance and data confidentiality. Today, almost all banks use digital technology to assess credit applications, track market trends, manage risk and offer personalised customer services.

Banking has also been made safer through real-time transaction monitoring, customer behavioural analysis and credit risk prediction. Similarly, virtual chatbots, personalised banking recommendations, automated transactions and spending pattern analysis have enabled banks to offer relevant services to customers. Being an early adopter has undoubtedly helped the BFSI industry reduce operational costs, improve customer experience, reduce fraud, enhance compliance and automate critical business decision-making. 


Ethical considerations and privacy concerns

Another critical side to the AI discourse is the ethical and privacy concerns of using the technology. Since most everyday AI applications boil down to some type of decision-making by an algorithm, it’s fair to ask what happens when an AI system takes unjustified or biased actions. Similarly, who will be accountable when an AI system makes a fatal error or distributes erroneous information, leading to real-world harm? Similarly, how much autonomy are we, as a civilisation, willing to cede to a virtual, non-existent entity?

Then, there’s the moral consideration of replacing millions of existing jobs with AI-powered tools that will have an economic impact and a social fallout. The use of public works for building generative AI tools has also raised the issue of copyright, ownership and attribution. The fact that AI systems consume, process and have access to hordes of sensitive personal data requires a comprehensive review of data usage at every step of the AI journey. AI tools' many data points on everyone, malicious actors can develop systems to infer sensitive information that can help identify individuals or, worse, commit identity theft.

Since AI is a relatively new technology and its adoption is still underway, existing laws and regulations are not equipped to deal with its application. While some regions have started consulting stakeholders and drafting laws, this shift is so monumental that we may fail to cover the different aspects of AI impact in the future. Alongside strong regulation, experts have suggested globally applicable best practices and ethical guidelines to influence the development and application of AI. 


Preparing for an AI-driven future

Despite the concerns and challenges, one thing’s sure: AI is the future. So, understanding how the technology works and building the skills to adapt to an AI-integrated world might be in everyone's best interests. While it’s true that AI will change the nature of many jobs, particularly in the marketing, data science and IT sectors, it also presents an opportunity to build leaner work processes and efficient work models that allow higher productivity. People who learn to use AI in their work can potentially make the most of these changes, access new work opportunities and find greater work-life balance. This transition will be disruptive, but we can minimise the negative impact by reimagining our existing education systems, training programs and certifications.

As we step into the future, staying disconnected from a hyper-digital world that runs on data will become increasingly challenging. How we manage this change depends entirely on us. A great starting point can be understanding how AI will impact different aspects of your life and what you can do to prepare for the future.