October 2018

Amazon is not having a good time of it lately. From poor working conditions in its warehouses to manipulating reviews, it seems barely a day goes by without another negative headline and everyone from Bernie Sanders to eBay getting in line to lodge a complaint. In the midst of this, claims have surfaced that Amazon have had to scrap an AI based recruitment tool because it taught itself that men would make better candidates.

According to a recent survey from Gartner, 84% of CIOs from top digital performers have reimagined their role and now have responsibilities outside of traditional IT. Not only does this mean that the role of the CIO is changing, it means that the CIO can have a direct influence on the business’ strategy and growth. Just 23% of CIOs rated their organisation as effective at business strategy and planning, so what are some of the problems facing CIOs in embedding IT into the plan for the future of their firms?

The crux of artificial intelligence is the efficiency it provides. By taking a machine and giving it the ability to make decisions and carry out simple tasks, companies can save both time and money lost to humans carrying out menial objectives that can be done by a machine at 10 times the speed. Anything from creating a personalised customer service experience to detecting and evaluating risks within a supply chain network can be done by AI, so it’s high time you look into what it can do for your organisation. 

The term ‘Big Data’ is a relatively new addition to the dictionary of tech, but the concept behind it is far from ground-breaking – you try an approach, analyse its effectiveness and make the necessary adjustments for next time. The evolution of technology means that not only is more information being collected, but that it can now be stored, processed and utilised faster than ever before, so it’s time we start making the most of it.