Leveraging smart techs in making precise decisions

Businesses across the world are rapidly leveraging the Internet-of-Things (IoT) to create new networks of products and services, that are opening new business opportunities and creating new business models.

However, for companies to realize the full potential of IoT, analysts say there is need to combine it with other technologies suchs as IA.

Microsoft Enterprise Business senior Account Executive Kellington Kituku says IoT equals sensing and seeing and then AI tells the user what it is and therefore give the value out of it.

IoT refers to anything that is able to collect and essentially transmit data. Mostly IoTs are used for monitoring while AI trains computers to do things that should essentially be the domain of human beings.

“IoT and AI are all about enabling smart machines to simulate intelligent behaviour, to enable the user make well-informed decisions with little or no human intervention,” he said.

Microsoft provides the platforms for people to build various IoT solutions that enable users predict to the highest level of accuracy so that business stops being guess work.

“So for any business to be able to grow, they need to start looking at this treasure trove of data and leverage on it to make predictions on their performance,” he said.

Professional coaches are also banking on developments in technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to influence change and support growth for individuals and organisations.

Magdalena Mook, the executive director at International Coach Federation (ICF), says with improvements in technology, the very first stages of coaching can be replaced by AI.

Already, the professional coaches are using technology such as Zoom and Skype to communicate with their clients.

In farming IoT and AI technologies can be used to help farmers get better yields.

For instance the farmers can put sensors in the soil to establish moisture content and acidity levels, which will then advise on amount of fertilizer to use.

“The value to the farmer is that he will not over spend on fertiliser and will use correct ingredients from a moisture content perspective in order to get better yield,” says Mr Kituku.

Businesses, tech experts say, must move rapidly to identify how they will derive value from combining AI and IoT, or “face playing catch-up in years to come”.