Tag: machine learning

The technology landscape is undergoing a seismic shift comparable to the spread of smartphones in the mid-00’s. While we’ve had a constant stream of technological advancements since then, none have had the same transformative impact as the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology continues to evolve globally, its integration into the South African business landscape is becoming increasingly prominent. Companies across various sectors are leveraging AI to drive efficiencies, optimise operations, and create new revenue streams.

Auto insurance is leading the charge with the adoption of dynamic pricing, which entails developing policies that are more cost-effective for low-risk customers and using a different premium model for high-risk policyholders. There is significant potential for life and health insurers to capitalise on this momentum and embrace this model within subsets of their product offerings.

While COVID-19 put the brakes on the economy, the post-pandemic recovery has almost been stymied by the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine and the impending fears of a US recession, contributing negatively to economies around the world. Through the most challenging hurdles, however, the franchise sector in South Africa has remained steadfast in its goals to grow the economy and create jobs.

Statistics show that companies that are evolving by embracing speed and agility are growing at twice the rate of companies that are struggling to scale innovation.

So far the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been slow to reveal themselves in businesses in South Africa but the scale of the oncoming change is starting to become apparent overseas. AI’s influence is growing in the workplace and will bring substantial change to South African offices in the next few years as machine learning, task automation and robotics are increasingly used in business.

What do we have to go on besides sci-fi fiction story I, Robot’s 'The Three Laws of Robotics'? In many industries in South Africa, there has been a massive drive towards incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning into business and products to streamline operations, analyse user behaviour and determine or predict potential purchasing behaviour.

Boardroom efforts to make customer experience a priority is being hampered by rising costs, retention and bad debt. South African firms continue to be challenged by rising costs of customer acquisition, retention, fraud and bad debt while striving for innovation through leveraging data and AI techniques.

Identity access management (IAM) is an older approach to enterprise security that is complex and difficult to manage across all users, throughout the business and its many systems, both sanctioned and shadow, along with the associated on- and off-premise data.

There are some big things set for 2019. Customer expectations continue to evolve, new technologies are developed to push the envelope and all of that leads to continuous transformation of our business, our people, our processes and of course, the technology and infrastructure.