Artificial Intelligence or AI as it is popularly known, is not a new subject for businesses, especially for the tech industry. Tech giants have been researching Artificial Intelligence for many decades. And today, we all might be even using AI unknowingly as a feature in some or the other apps on mobile phones or computers.
For example, when a search query for manufacturers of a particular product is made on Google from any device, it automatically checks the location of the device and shows a list of manufacturers located in the nearby area. Simply put, this is nothing but Artificial Intelligence.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Essentially, AI is a method of simulating human intelligence in machines. AI-enabled machines are programmed to think like humans and mimic human behaviour.
Importance of Artificial Intelligence?
These days a lot of companies are interested in implementing Artificial Intelligence into their businesses to improve their processes, efficiency and get rid of redundancy. The two main benefits of Artificial Intelligence technology are:
1. Highly efficient Data Management
With AI applications, highly accurate data management and filtration become possible. Companies can get exact data about its consumers, market trends, demand-supply chain, etc. With such accurate data, companies can serve their customers better.
2. Improved Automation
When AI technology is implemented for automation, it helps machines in learning and taking decisions as humans do. This automatically increases the productivity and efficiency of any company.
So, to maintain a competitive edge, companies are now investing heavily in research and implementing AI in their businesses. According to research, the global revenues for the AI industry in 2025 would reach 125 billion US dollars
Artificial Intelligence as a Service
Although tech giants can afford the high costs of developing AI software, small companies can’t afford to develop a standalone AI technology for themselves.
But with the advent of cloud services, many tech companies now offer AI Software as a service. Now, small and mid-level companies can get access to an AI application offered by a third-party vendor. These companies can get access to an already developed AI Software by paying fees according to their usage – which is just like paying fees for using a service, and such software can also be fine-tuned or customized as per their requirements.
By using Artificial Intelligence as a Service – AIaaS, such small and mid-level companies can save the cost of huge investments in the form of time and money for building AI software from the base. Instead, they can take AIaaS and immediately start reaping the benefits of Artificial Intelligence.
Various companies now offer AI as a Service (AIaaS). Some of the leading companies that offer AI as a service are:
- Google offers its AI services with Google Cloud AI Hub.
- Microsoft offers Microsoft Azure as its AIaaS.
- Amazon has its pre-trained AI services under the name Amazon Web Services
- IBM Watson Cloud is Offered by IBM
Advantages of using AIaaS
Some of the significant benefits of using Artificial Intelligence as a Service are:
1. Access to the latest technology with minimum cost
Developing and implementing AI software requires huge investments in hardware. By using AI software as a Service, companies can get access to the vendor’s latest hardware and software updates through the cloud at minimal costs.
2. Focus on Core Business
By using AIaaS, companies can concentrate and develop their core business rather than building and maintaining an AI application in-house as it requires a huge amount of resources.
3. Pay as per usage plan
AIaaS providers have different plans for different functionalities in their package. For example, there are different plans for speech recognition, translation, Natural Language Processing, and so on. So, companies only have to pay for the specific plans that they require.
4. Easy to use
Since Artificial Intelligence is offered in different packages, implementation of AI on the client-side becomes easy and the programmers on the client side need not be AI experts. They only need to have knowledge of basic package implementation.
5. Support & Service
The tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. also offer 24×7 support and service. If the businesses face any problems while implementing or during the usage of these services, they can contact the support center, and they will receive help online from the customer support team.
The Disadvantage of Artificial Intelligence
The biggest disadvantage of AI technology is the cost of developing it. The machines that can carry out severely heavy calculations and the programmers who are experts in AI, all come with very high costs.
Conclusion
AI now being offered as a service has brought a drastic change in the day-to-day workings of small and mid-scale companies. It has been a blessing for companies that want to implement AI without incurring high costs. But as AI comes with its benefits, it also brings various risks along. It is the responsibility of the company to measure the advantages and the disadvantages of AIaaS before taking it from a provider and implementing it.
