The conventional wisdom around AI has been that while computers have the edge over humans when it comes to data-driven decision making, it can’t compete on qualitative tasks. That, however, is changing. Natural language processing (NLP) tools have advanced rapidly and can help with writing, coding, and discipline-specific reasoning. Companies that want to make use of this new tech should focus on the following: 1) Identify text data assets and determine how the latest techniques can be leveraged to add value for your firm, 2) understand how you might leverage AI-based language technologies to make better decisions or reorganize your skilled labor, 3) begin incorporating new language-based AI tools for a variety of tasks to better understand their capabilities, and 4) don’t underestimate the transformative potential of AI.
Until recently, the conventional wisdom was that while AI was better than humans at data-driven decision making tasks, it was still inferior to humans for cognitive and creative ones. But in the past two years language-based AI has advanced by leaps and bounds, changing common notions of what this technology can do.