How do you choose the right AI solution for your business ?

The last few months have been very intense with Artificial Intelligence (AI) disruptions, and everyone has been able to try their hand at ChatGPT for fun. But these tools are not toys: they can be very useful for companies, and are likely to become a permanent fixture in many sectors.

Indeed, AI-based technologies can automate tasks, make predictions thanks to data analysis, improve customer service, reduce errors, etc.

But you need to know how to use them… When you are not familiar with these tools, you can quickly feel overwhelmed. How to install them, how to use them, for what purposes, which services to choose? These are all questions that many companies ask themselves when they want to implement an AI solution.

One possibility: surround yourself with specialists who will be able to offer you a tool adapted to your needs and guide you in this transition. In this article, we explain how to choose the right AI solution for you.

Existing AI solutions on the market

The different AI solutions

Artificial Intelligence consists in using data as a learning base to predict or reproduce a behavior. Today, companies can collect and store a very large amount of information about their business that could be exploited.

This is where AIaaS, or Artificial Intelligence as a Service, comes in, a sector where experts develop and offer AI tools ready to be used.

These AI solutions can take many different forms, but the following are the main offerings for businesses :

  • Digital assistance services and automatic chatbots: the objective is to offer assistance by email or via live chat to answer users’ questions and guide them quickly, thanks to AI.
  • Robotic Process Automation (RPA): this consists in using a virtual robot that reproduces the behavior of a user on an interface. This technology can, for example, send emails for you, fill in forms, verify payments, etc.
  • Data analysis solutions using Machine Learning (ML): these are integrated tools, the ALLONIA platform, to explore your data and accelerate your AI projects.
  • Cognitive computing” APIs: these APIs are tools that allow you to interact with different services and to access technologies already developed without writing code. There are many applications: supporting a chatbot, identifying errors, translating texts, recognizing language, etc.
  • Customized AI solutions: ALLONIA offers this specific and customized AI service to meet your needs.

How do you choose the solution that best suits your business needs ?

Knowing what AI solutions are available is a first step, but you also need to identify the one that is most relevant to you. Of course, each tool is adaptable, but your need may be related to an existing structure.

You can therefore already identify the AI solutions that would seem useful to you, by analyzing their use cases and concrete applications. This is the purpose of the next part.

We also invite you to surround yourself with specialists in the field in order to make the best choice. For example, the BPI can provide you with personalized support in your AI integration process. You can also contact our teams of experts who will be happy to help you set up your projects, either on our platform or to carry out tailor-made projects according to your needs.

Use cases for AI solutions

Digital assistance and automatic chatbots

If you have a large volume of customer requests across multiple time zones and sometimes find it difficult to respond quickly, digital assistants that rely on AI can be very helpful. In particular, they make it easier to understand your users and identify their difficulty. You keep customer service by a human operator only in special cases.

Advantage :

  • you gain in efficiency and speed of response to customers;
  • These solutions allow your teams to spend less time on recurring requests and to focus on complex tasks;
  • You get statistics on the main difficulties encountered by customers, to determine the points on which the service must be improved.

Inconvenience :

  • For AI to be effective and well adapted, it is necessary to have many customer requests.
  • As digital assistance services are used by many companies, it is sometimes complicated to adapt the chatbot to your corporate identity.

Automation of robotic processes

If some employees perform many repetitive procedures on a daily basis (producing relatively similar daily posts for social networks, retrieving data and adapting its format, updating a graph, etc.), good news! These tasks can be automated using RPA solutions.

Advantage :

  • Handle large volumes of necessary, but low-value-added tasks;
  • Save time, a lot of time, as highlighted in a McKinsey survey on the subject.

Inconvenience :

The implementation of this solution is sometimes a bit long depending on the tasks to be automated. It is therefore only profitable once a certain quantity is reached.

Data analysis (ML)

If you have very large databases, which you sometimes find difficult to exploit, Machine Learning solutions and models can help you. Bring your technical teams on board and collaborate to implement all your AI projects via a SaaS platform.

ALLONIA is a 100% open, secure, sovereign and collaborative AI platform based on Federated Learning techniques. The platform allows you to deploy your AI projects in a few clicks and facilitates the sharing of your data and models between your internal teams, as well as with your partners and customers.

Advantage :

  • you understand your data better and make it talk!
  • you can make relevant predictive analyses
  • you use your data to make better decisions
  • Can be used in any industry

Inconveniences :

For an ML model to work, it requires a fairly large volume of data of good quality.

Cognitive computing API

This solution is relevant for a large number of use cases, including those presented above.

Advantages :

There is a wide range of APIs and possibilities.

Inconveniences :

  • it can be difficult to identify the relevant possibilities among all the offers;
  • using an API well requires some technical knowledge.

Tailor-made solutions

If your company has specific needs, if you are looking for ideas or solutions, if you want support. Choose the tailor-made solution ALLONIA already accompanies many clients and our teams will guide you and help you to set up the project best suited to your needs.

Advantages :

These solutions, by definition, are modular and adapted to your needs.

Inconveniences :

  • these solutions are often more expensive: because they are a tailor-made service
  • It is sometimes difficult to operate them without having your own AI team in the company (our teams train and collaborate with your technical teams).

Criteria to consider when choosing the right AI solution

Although it is best to seek advice from specialists in the field, there are a few things you can think about first to identify the best solutions.

The specific needs of your company

The possibilities offered by the use of AI are different in different sectors. In order to identify the solutions that are relevant to your business and to implement them efficiently, it is important to define your needs.

First, we invite you to make a list of tasks where you think you are wasting time, where you have little added value, and which are repetitive. These are the types of processes that could be easily handled by an AI. Also think about the data you want to analyse and on the basis of which you would like to make decisions.

If you are not familiar with the functionalities of AI solutions, you can learn more directly from the AIaaS companies’ websites, which often highlight concrete examples of use. At ALLONIA, we support all kinds of clients (sectors: energy, construction, cybersecurity, logistics, mobility…).

The available data

Artificial Intelligence models must be trained using databases. In concrete terms, in order for a chatbot to be able to respond automatically to a customer, it must have had access to a large number of real texts and exchanges.

If AI solutions developed by experts are already functional, it is sometimes necessary to adapt them by submitting them to your own data. In particular, if you want to build a predictive model for one of your key indicators, you will need to provide large amounts of information. Your access to AI services is therefore conditional on the volume of data you have, and its quality.

Before choosing an AI solution, it is therefore necessary to have a good knowledge of the data your company has, its format, its quality, its storage mode, etc. It is up to you to put in place methods to improve your available databases – by accessing cloud services to store larger volumes for example. At ALLONIA the choice of cloud is important: OVH Cloud, Scaleway but also your own infrastructure if needed !

The skills of the team in charge of implementing the AI solution

If you don’t have a team already skilled in data science or any other discipline in the industry, it can be complicated to get an AI solution right. In this case, the customer service of the AIaaS you choose will be critical.

First determine the level of your own team: some AIaaS offer easy services and interfaces that require little or no code knowledge: but this limits the possibilities! At ALLONIA, our platform is dedicated to technical teams (data scientist, analyst, devOps, ML Ops, engineer…). With the code, this does not restrict the spectrum! And, depending on the skills of your teams, we adapt our offer with training.

Security and data protection

At ALLONIA, you don’t have to worry about anything, the platform is sovereign and secure. Whatever your field of activity, the protection of your data is essential. To put all the chances on your side, favour hosting on French or European servers, and pay attention to the security methods of the AI offers.

At ALLONIA, we guarantee you full control of your data thanks to an infrastructure entirely hosted in France (not subject to the Patriot Act or the Cloud Act) and to algorithmic processing integrating open source software (not subject to commercial licences).

The ALLONIA platform integrates from its conception the ability to share data between different organisations in order to reach the critical size necessary to learn the algorithms, while keeping control of your data.

The budget available for the implementation of the AI solution

An AI solution can quickly become expensive, especially if you want a highly adaptable or even purpose-built model. Moreover, you may be tempted to choose several tools in order to maximize your gains. We advise you to limit your number of solutions at the outset, but to choose them carefully and exploit them as much as possible.

Moreover, the prices of AI services vary greatly. The easiest way to find out is to ask the companies directly for demonstrations and quotes. We have 3 prices for the ALLONIA platform: according to your needs, your use and the number of users. And, our customised services: so don’t hesitate and ask for a demo and a quote !

Conclusion

If you are interested in using AI solutions, there are many offerings from AIaaS companies. We therefore invite you to think carefully about your needs beforehand.

Moreover, the AI market is constantly evolving, and so are the solutions available to companies. Calling on specialists is also a way of ensuring that you benefit from cutting-edge technologies and remain competitive. To discuss your AI integration projects, do not hesitate to contact a member of our team.Finally, to make the most of these new AI solutions, anticipate and improve your data recovery. Their quality and volume are indeed a condition for the success of an AI tool.