How Artificial Intelligence is revolutionizing the startup industry?

Throughout history, the world has witnessed 3 industrial revolutions:

There was the first industrial revolution which began in the 18th century which was centralized on the usage of steam/water as power. Then there was the second industrial revolution which began in the 19th century through the discovery of electricity. The third industrial revolution came in the 1970s with the era of partial automation and computers began.

Currently, we are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution which is driven by artificial intelligence.

What is significant about artificial intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence gives machines the power to think, learn, and act as a human could, which means they can understand the world around them, learn, and make decisions, and then take the appropriate action. To do all of this AI needs data and lots of it for that matter. And the reason AI is part of the Fourth industrial revolution is that we have data, due to digitalization we have data more than ever before.

AI was invented in the 1960s and it is evolving ever since, now AI can take real-world financial decisions, chat with people, play games against humans, and work hand in hand with them. You would find an AI-driven system behind all the real-world applications. AI works in a sense-think-act cycle with the environment. Artificial Intelligence senses/takes in the data provided to it, makes a decision based on the experience, and finally performs an action affecting the environment.

It takes the data in the form of images, videos, sound, text, etc., analyses this data using AI algorithms, and delivers AI-powered solutions. The figure shows the sense-think-and-act cycle for an AI.

Start-Ups and Artificial Intelligence

The technological advancement in artificial intelligence has increased machine interaction, business models, and the living standard of humans.

The adoption of AI is resulting in a world that is smarter and innovative. Screening technologies for cancer at Freenome, self-driving cars detecting traffic, face recognition on pictures for friend’s tag suggestions at Facebook, sorting in our email, and the recommendation for online shopping are some examples of AI technological innovations present in our lives. Artificial intelligence is spreading through the market, it is necessary for the companies to perform R&D with their product and service. This new necessity is impelling businesses, entrepreneurs, and investigators to use AI to uplift their business, new strategies, new business models, and new sources for business value.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the worldwide spending on cognitive and Artificial Intelligence systems will increase prominently from ₹8 Thousand Crores in 2017 to approx. ₹43 Thousand Crores in 2021. With this increased funding amount, AI is likely to be involved in more sectors. Thus, it becomes necessary for R&D to research the functioning of an AI in different sectors in modern businesses. AI adoption by the companies will lead to the shaping of the business contexts. Prior awareness about the possibilities of AI would help society in adopting the AI-driven system.

AI and other businesses

Technology is reshaping all businesses. AI is pacing up, your business is going to have to get smarter. Every business is going to have to get smarter – from small start-ups, MSMEs to global corporations, and even traditional businesses. In the Indian market, businesses of different shapes and sizes will be impacted by this revolution.

Such a traditional sector like agriculture is undergoing some huge changes, in which AI is being used to intelligently plan what crops to plant, when, and where, to maximize harvests, which exponentially increases the efficiency of the farm, aeroponics is an artificial driven system with which crops or plants grow without soil or aggregate medium also referred as hydroponics or landless farming. AI can help farmers keep track of soil and weather conditions, and the health of crops. Data is even being gathered from farming equipment, to improve the efficiency of machine maintenance. Innovations of such intelligent machines are developed that can help in identifying and delicately sort cucumbers, picking up ripe soft fruits, and pinpoint pests and diseases.

This is the impact of Artificial Intelligence. All industries are evolving rapidly. Innovation and change are the new norms. Those who are unable to adapt to AI to improve their business – whatever the business – will struggle to compete.

Funding AI

Momentum began to shift in 2011 when AI venture capital investments saw a significant jump in the sector from ₹200 crores in 2011 to ₹1000 crores in 2016 and it was 1 lakh crores last year, signifying maturing capabilities and growing investor confidence in that domain. An Increase of investments into artificial intelligence continued in 2020 with funds growing by ₹ 1000 crores from January to July, despite the slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, the Indian AI market is valued to be more than ₹1000 crores in August 2020 and this is the midst of the COVID pandemic, AI has much more to offer. Also, SMEs and AI start-ups are now pacing and scaling up with new technological solutions. Hence, we can say that all the industrial sectors are witnessing an accelerated adoption of AI technologies to ensure business growth and development.

AI and India

Advancement in AI is the highest priority, many R&D departments are working on them. AI has far more potential than we have right now, especially in the medical field. Healthcare start-ups are an important factor to our medical services and can provide significant help in the post-covid-crisis also some medical start-ups have received funding in 2019, such as Babylon Health, Tempus, and Freenome, which provide remote health check and diagnosis, cancer treatment with a simple blood test, and delivery of therapeutics.

The Government of India is now taking a keen interest in developing the sector and to create a robust public AI infrastructure for all. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has been working on a proposal for the National Mission of Artificial Intelligence. This project boosts the use of AI in India and was estimated to cost around ₹2000 crore. AI-based solutions like water management, pest control, and crop insurance are being developed. ICRISAT has developed an AI-powered sowing app, which utilizes weather models and data on local crop yield and rainfall. This led to a 10 to 30% increase in their harvest. The central board of secondary education has introduced AI into the school curriculum, starting out Python programming language and some prior knowledge of algorithms to ensure that students passing out have the basic knowledge of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

The market for artificial intelligence in India is growing continuously. This can also be determined from the fact that the number of people looking for jobs in this field is witnessing a stark rise. Job search in the AI market has risen to 106% from June 2019 to June 2020.

Customer communication made easy

Customer interaction is the most basic form of communication between a company and its customers. Every single interaction between both of them is a new opportunity for the company to understand and satisfy customers and retain them. In the conventional process, customers used to interact with the employees of the company, holding the position of retail shop executive, salespersons, cashiers, customer relationship managers, etc. for all their needs, products, and services. The integration of AI to fill up the communication gap between the customers and the companies. This evolved customer interaction from human-to-human to human-to-machine. Intelligent Chatbots and virtual assistants are some intelligent ways adopted by companies to make communication an easier experience. These new ways are very user friendly, are efficient in solving delays, human errors, and gives out almost immediate personalized responses to the customers. Following are some of the examples of companies with their AI-driven chat boxes

1. Google duplex: For making real-world calls

2. 1-800-Flowers: Order flowers

3. North face: Product selection

4. Spotify: Discover weekly playlist

5. KFC: Facial recognition for order prediction

Currently, the most advanced conversational agents can automate simple, repetitive, low-level tasks and queries. However, developers are on their progressive path to make them capable of performing complex tasks, understand language emotions and more importantly the problems, and thus deliver an efficient and satisfactory/contented experience to the customers. Several global market intelligence firms have conducted various surveys and performed research activities to analyze the present and future of AI-based customer interaction.

Following are some examples of Indian Artificial Intelligence –

• Niramai Health Analytix

NIRAMAI is developing a novel software to detect breast cancer at a much earlier stage than traditional methods or self-examination.

• CropIn

CropIn is an intuitive, intelligent, self-evolving system that delivers future-ready farming solutions to the entire agricultural sector.

• Niki.ai

Niki is bringing the household consumption of Bharat online by building the digital localized agent for 500 million new internet users.

The market is full of people trying to make it big in the game. And since there is a ton of competition out there you better want yourself to be ahead of others. That is why research and read as much as you can. We at insellers, have been doing a lot of research and carrying out the implementation with our clients. We tell you the not so often talked about inspiring reverie to real stories of SMEs and startup, to inspire the Entrepreneur in you. Check out our website for more amazing blogs like this.