As a CTO, your focus is on finding ways of incorporating new technologies into your company’s operations to improve performance. Machine learning is one of the hottest new technologies with the ability to multiply your company’s performance stats ten-fold. Before you jump into machine learning applications and integrations, it's important to have a stronger understanding of what machine learning is to see how you can use it. Here is what CTOs need to know about machine learning.
What is Machine Learning?
Machine learning is a technology that allows artificial intelligence systems, like ChatGPT, to learn new things. You can also use it to manage tasks like data analytics and process automation. At the core of machine learning, it is as simple as showing the system how to do something basic, then feeding it information so that it can practice and learn over time.
For example, there are two methods of machine learning: supervised learning and unsupervised learning. All systems start with supervised learning, where users show the process for understanding data, then feed it more data as examples.
Once the machine understands the data it is being fed and what it needs to do with it, it takes over the process and begins working on unsupervised learning. In unsupervised learning, the machine is free to interpret data and adjust its mental models based on what it sees.
Over time and with constant repetition, an AI-based machine can refine its processes and even discover new ones based on trends in the data that it sees and tasks it is asked to do. As it develops, the system becomes faster and more effective at processing data than its users can do on their own.
How Can Machine Learning Improve Business Performance?
Machine learning is often used in business to help AI systems improve their performance. AI’s are based on models built from large segments of data. Similar to humans, AI uses massive data sets to understand the world around it and figure out what to do. Machine learning helps programs adjust their models so that they better understand the data that they receive, making them faster and more efficient.
In business, this means that AI equipped with machine learning can learn to do their jobs better over time and even learn to do different jobs if given the right information. This leads to a wide range of potential applications.
Automated Systems
One of the most effective ways that ML can influence business performance is by creating automated systems. Many of the tasks that workers do every day are repetitive. ML-equipped AI can handle many of these tasks without the need for human input. These systems can free a lot of manpower to focus on more important tasks and significantly improve productivity.
Business Insights
AI systems are orders of magnitude faster at processing data than humans, which makes them perfect for big data analytics. They can process large volumes of data quickly and find trends that users may not. With the right machine learning guides, AI systems could effectively predict important business trends and find insights into industries that even the most skilled business analysts may struggle to find.
AI Development
Machine learning is the key to more advanced AI systems. It gives them the ability to learn and grow beyond their original parameters, making them more useful in a number of ways. Essentially, anything that AI can do, machine learning can make it better.
Refined Processes
One of the things that machine learning does exceptionally well is to refine processes. As it repeats processes over and over again, it becomes clear which parts of a process are important and how it can speed them up. The result is processes that are more refined and efficient, which can also improve productivity.
How Can I Implement Machine Learning in Existing Systems?
Integrating new systems can be an expensive and time-consuming task, but you don’t have to in order to get the benefits of machine learning. There are ways to incorporate ML into existing systems.
The simplest way to implement ML is to use a third-party integration to include machine learning in your current processes, especially those dealing with data analytics. Many companies use ML in data analytics to identify trends and automate analyses. This leads to much faster data processing and utilization under the care of system admins.
Is Machine Learning Worth The Investment?
One of the biggest questions that you’ll have to answer as the CTO is if machine learning is worth the investment. This varies by company, but it is worth the investment if you meet certain criteria.
Most importantly, being able to implement ML in existing processes is essential for justifying the investment. This is the most cost-effective way of implementing ML for business process improvement. Otherwise, look for ways that will return significant improvements if ML is available. If not, then ML investment may not be your first choice for new technologies. While machine learning is still developing, there are companies that can help you with it. At KitelyTech, we work with companies to understand machine learning on a deeper level and put it to use. Call us at (800) 274-2908 to discuss how we can add machine learning to your processes.
