How A.I is affecting the most major industries.

AI has become somewhat of a buzzword over these past few years; it has had a huge surge in popularity and has also been developing very rapidly. Throughout this ‘’growing’’ phase of AI, it has started to affect many industries, this ranges from healthcare, education and even retail.

Healthcare:

The first of these industries that I want too discuss is healthcare.

The healthcare industries is one of the industries society needs and leans on the most, during the COVID-19 pandemic all eyes were on the health industry to deal with the influx of patients but to also create a vaccine, and it’s not news to anybody that the pandemic was really hard on the health care industry, but AI is hoping to change that.

AI is being used in many ways, one way is in assisting drug discovery, AI assists by scanning large date bases of compounds and highlights the most promising ones which helps narrow down which compounds to look it for finding cures and solutions, this means more life saving medicines can be released quicker.

AI is also assisting in terms of robotic surgery, AI powered robot systems are paving a new era of surgery, by using robotic arms to perform more precise and less risky surgeries, this means risky surgeries that even top surgeons couldn’t perform could now be performed which means many more lives can saved. However lots of people disagree with these systems because people believe they cannot be trusted and things could go wrong at any given moment, which isn’t a false view to have. The new robotic surgery is being tested but in the very near future they could be our surgeons.

Education:

Another industry where AI is being used is the education sector. The education sector is a very controversial sector because it is often remarked for its outdated practices, but AI seems to be the industries attempt at some modernisation.

AI is already being used in schools to automate grading. AI systems are being used to streamline grade processes by analysing students work, and assessing their key points and giving them an A-F grade, schools say this has been put in place to assist teachers and give them more time to focus on teaching in the classroom, however this new system has faced a lot of backlash from students and teachers alike, because students say that the AI doesn’t know the student well enough to mark them fairly because all students have unique writing styles and get their points across in different ways, ways only their personal teacher may understand, parents share similar views. Due to these opinions the automated grading system is only on trial in a few schools in selected states, it is unclear if this system will become the norm.

Another way AI is being used in education is through virtual assistant tutoring. Throughout Covid many students lost the opportunity to see their teachers in person, this led to classes being held on programs such as ZOOM, Teams and Google Classrooms, but they always involved real teachers, but AI is being used to change that. If a student requires outside of school support or tutoring they may be assigned a virtual tutor, this is done via an avatar which looks somewhat like a teacher, who talks to the student via an AI generated lesson plan, this was put in place to help students where teachers aren’t available to give a lot of 1 on 1 time.

Retail:

Retail is a constant booming sector, with impalpable amounts of money being generated by the industry every day, but it is an industry which is needing constant improvement, and AI hopes to bring around some change.

One way AI is changing the retail space is by creating tailored shopping experiences for consumers. AI will analyse your habits such as what you search for on Amazon or what you watch on Netflix, and it will use this data to tailor things to you, for example if you searched up cooking equipment on Amazon, you may be recommended a brand new cook book. This is probably one of the most commonly used part of AI in the retail industry because customer satisfaction is the most important thing to a retail company.

Another way AI is used is to help retail companies predict how much inventory they will need and how much inventory they will sell, this helps reduce the likelihood of buying too much or too little of stock which keeps prices down.

In conclusion many people may be uncertain about whether or not they should trust AI because a lot of people still don’t and for now I say stay on guard about AI because it is an predictable phenomenon but it is important to recognise the good AI can actually do for the world especially in important industries such as the health care industry where AI can solve and help so many lives.

Thank you so much for reading my article I hope you found this insightful and helpful

- Written by Sahib Khera