5 Ways AI Changed Your Daily Routine

The association between Artificial Intelligence with a distant future like the one depicted by science fiction movies is still very much done. Because of the kitschy flashiness and borderline absurdity of how AI was envisioned and articulated a few decades ago, its arrival into the mundane has come almost unnoticeably into the household of billions. 

The influence of AI on the daily routine of billions of people worldwide is already large and is expected to grow even further. According to an Accenture study, AI-adoption could lead to an economic boost of US$14 trillion gross value added by 2035. 

Regardless of how aware people are of its existence, AI has already become an omnipresent force. Elon Musk made waves years ago for stating that the majority of human beings are already cyborgs due to the extent of our integration with smartphones and laptops. Few would now argue this is not the case. There are at least five main ways in which AI has penetrated our daily lives.

Less Time Spent Writing & Organizing Emails

This is one obvious way in which virtually everyone has been touched by the revolutionary applications of AI. Also, it’s the clearest case of how taking technological improvement for granted has led to some key achievements of AI to be overlooked. Its’ contribution to its users mailing routine has been multifold:

• Long are the days in which protecting oneself from spam was a difficult and time-consuming task;
• The quality of the writing of emails has been enhanced by tools such as Grammarly. There are plagiarism checkers that have, to a lesser extent, also made an impact;
• It has become easier to organize oneself thanks to good filters, the increasing quality of predictive searches and intuitive email categorization systems;
• “Smart reply” on Gmail has speeded up the process of completion of boiler-plate sentences through a suggestion mechanism. This has been said to constitute 10% of all emails sent on the most used email service nowadays;
• Likewise, Gmail’s nudges are a very helpful tool to ensure that important emails are replied to as well as to remember how to follow up emails sent for which there has been no response.
  

Reliable Mobile Banking

The degree to which AI has changed the banking experience would have been inconceivable a few decades ago. To this day, the thought that people rely on their smartphones to carry out sensitive tasks such as transferring money is still received with skepticism by the older generations. One very important way in which AI has changed mobile banking which is often neglected is the improvement of fraud prevention mechanisms on identity theft. The time taken for a bank to react to a fraudulent transaction has been improved, which is key to prevent financial loss.

Thanks to AI, check deposits, have gained a new life and are becoming a popular recourse. Requiring users to do little more than take a picture of a check with their mobile’s camera is, of course, one of its appeals. Another great benefit of the advent of reliable mobile banking is that traditionally underserved borrowers have gained access to credit thanks to better risk prediction models powered by AI (and machine learning) being carried out by banks worldwide. It was found in a study by PwC that this trend is to continue as over half of the financial services industry is already making considerable investments in AI. 

Uncomplicated Navigation & Traveling

It’s almost unimaginable nowadays that people used to walk around without using their mobile as a map when looking for the closest ATM machine, supermarkets, friend’s homes and even traveling to completely new countries. 

It can now be detected how fast a device is traveling based on the comparison of the location of a device from one point in time to another, which allows for the detection of slow traffic in real-time. By complementing this data with the incidents reported by users, a comprehensive understanding of the traffic is being provided to users. The helpfulness of finding out the fastest routes to avoid construction work or accidents can not be overstated. Car-drivers could not be more thankful for the AI in charge of the detection of parking availability in their city either.

The precision of the estimated times of arrival (ETA) has been improved too which is crucial to the business model of ride-sharing apps such as Uber and online food deliveries like Foodora. 

Curated Online Shopping & Entertainment Experiences

As much as many would like to claim to be immune to the recommendations given by Spotify, YouTube, Amazon and/or Netflix’s algorithms, the reality is that predictive analytics has altered our consuming habits. To think that previous purchases/listens/plays are the only criteria taken into account couldn’t be further away from the truth. Depending on the time of day and weather, recommendations on many of these platforms vary.

The success of this personalization approach is such that research has shown that such recommendations have led up to a 30% increase in sales. The ever-increasing knowledge of the users’ preferences and buying habits has transformed the decision-making of the shopping experience. This has raised concerns about the potential amplification of our cognitive bias. It has to be said, nonetheless, that clear efforts have already been made to empower the user in the customization of the recommendations he receives through a multitude of curation models.

The Convenience of Virtual Assistants, Chatbots & Face Recognition

Virtual assistants, chatbots and face recognition technology are lumped together here due to how blatantly AI-powered they are. Indeed, it could be argued that with the arrival of Amazon Alexa, people started, for the first time, spending money on something which they were very well aware of was an AI product.

Its current role in the provision of basic services such as music, videos, weather info and Wikipedia facts is already commonplace. It is no longer something people do to show off their tech-savviness to their older family members. This has been particularly impactful to people with visual and auditory handicaps whose reliance on reliable ways of converting voice-to-text has made the need to improve AI an even more urgent affair.

The way virtual assistants have immersed in most people’s lives, however, is through the so-called chatbots. Their influence on streamlining customer service and quickly providing the user with answers to their queries should not be played down. Sure, they are still the source of much frustration but long are the days when the most basic of interactions were hair-tearing experiences.

Snapchat and Instagram filters may be the most-well known manifestations of face recognition technology. It is much more than that. Face ID on the latest iPhone models, for instance, has allowed users to unlock their mobile regardless of wearing glasses, makeup or even growing facial hair. Its application on public security has raised some eyebrows but few are those who don’t stop and wonder at the technological marvel of this AI-infused technology. And yes, Face ID can differentiate one twin from another.

Curious to see how else AI has been impacting our lives and contributing to the growth of organizations worldwide? You can mind more articles on the topic in our blog.