New Straits Times

Game-changing technology

Organisati­ons are beginning to reap the benefits of artificial intelligen­ce, writes

- Izwan Ismail SIMPLIFYIN­G COMPLEX PROCESSES

ACUSTOMER visits a local telecommun­ications website to check its roaming data and voice packages. On the online customer service page, there is chat box on the right hand side of the landing page which says “Message Us”. He clicks on it and a chatbox pops up with a lovely character — Clive (or Emma) — greeting him. He keys in the questions he has in mind and almost instantly, Clive replies. The conversati­on is so casual that little does the customer know that he is communicat­ing with a chatbot, a computer program designed to simulate conversati­on with humans.

Welcome to the world of AI where computers communicat­e with humans, and Clive and Emma, who belong to Celcom Axiata, are good examples of how this technology can help companies provide better service (in the form of virtual agents). By delivering these services to Celcom customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Clive and Emma can be viewed as tireless workers who handle a job that is otherwise time-consuming and stressful. These virtual assistants never get angry at the customer nor leave a query unanswered, connecting them to a human when the questions get too difficult, as when requested.

and inclusion to level the playing field for everyone, Saqib Shaikh, a blind Microsoft engineer, has used AI in his Seeing AI project, an initiative to enable people who are blind or with low vision to achieve more with technology.

Saqib’s team launched the Seeing AI app in 2017, giving those with visual impairment a new way to understand the world through cameras on smartphone­s. Since then, it has helped users around the world with more than 10 million tasks.

With the app, a user merely needs to point his phone at an object, and the app vocally states what it sees. With facial recognitio­n technology, the app can name friends and acquaintan­ces, describe physical appearance­s of people and even predict their moods.

“Today, across industries, AI is expanding the realm of possibilit­ies and ushering in an innovative future more rapidly than anything that has come before it. From healthcare and road safety to sports and even social upliftment, AI is a catalyst for almost all the sectors and can also help solve global environmen­tal challenges,” he adds. Glass packaging production is a complex process with over 150 variables involved. Any slight change can impact the product and costs. For the managecrit­ical ment, it was to drive operationa­l efficiency to enhance customer experience and to generate new revenue models.

Piramal Glass saw an opportunit­y to embrace digitalisa­tion, as well as introduce data and AI in

 ??  ?? The Seeing AI app being used at the Malaysian Associatio­n for the Blind. The app Saqib created is very simple. Clive (pic) and Emma can be viewed as tireless workers.
The Seeing AI app being used at the Malaysian Associatio­n for the Blind. The app Saqib created is very simple. Clive (pic) and Emma can be viewed as tireless workers.

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