Written by Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter
There was nothing artificial about Ian Ernst's presentation. The Erlanger native spoke to the Covington Rotary Club over lunch last week. And without wasting any time, he explained to the assembled group what exactly artificial intelligence is.
Ernst and his partner Leo Rader know all about it. They run Alliance Technical Group, LLC, which they call “practical AI and machine learning solutions for business.”
Ian Ernst, Alliance Technical GroupAlliance Technical Group (Photo by Andy Furman/NKyTribune)
The company services well-known accounts such as Fifth Third Bank, Anthem, GE Aviation, and VantagePoint Funds.
But what exactly do they do?
First, let's explain what artificial intelligence is. Ernst did an excellent job through his slide presentation to the assembled group.
“This is a broad field that involves the use of technology that gives machines the ability to mimic the cognitive functions associated with human intelligence,” Ernst pointed out very clearly on screen. He added that machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence that allows machines and systems to automatically learn and improve from experience.
“Machine learning uses algorithms to analyze large amounts of data, learn from insights, and make informed decisions,” he said, leaving the audience a little confused but with a deep sense of wanting to know more. It seemed like I was immersed in it.
Ernst went on to explain who will be using AI and, more importantly, how will it be used. He explained that Amazon and Netflix use IVR (Interactive Voice Response, Voice-to-Text).
He also surprised the group with statistics on self-driving cars. He said Waymo has 7.13 million fully driverless miles in three cities: Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
He mentioned that closer to home, AI is being used in autonomous robots such as vacuum cleaners in the home.
Ernst says all he wants to do is use AI tools to help companies become more effective and efficient.
Did I mention he volunteers on a cancer research project with medical research physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center? But his goal that day was to help a group of new businessmen and teach them the benefits of AI.
And for Rotarians, local businessmen, Ernst explained how AI can be beneficial to them.
“You can also generate advertising materials. You can also generate out-of-office notifications. You can also create job descriptions from tasks and job titles.”
The biggest draw, he noted, is the use of virtual furniture staging to create real estate images.
Ernst then touched on machine learning and showed the audience how it can help businesses.
Some points that Ernst touched on are:
• Stay ahead of your competitors by using data to predict future results.
• Use predictive analytics to identify potential customers by targeting those most likely to purchase your products or services.
• Use insights from data to improve market segmentation.
• Predict customer behavior by analyzing past purchasing patterns.
And of course it all works. Ernst has the documents to prove it. According to him, Oracies Data Digital from his warehouse reports more than $10 million in royalties each month for 40,000 artists and rights holders.
He added a CRM implementation to help the Panasonic Toughbook division grow from $600 million to $1 billion, and improved performance for the bank's website with more than 1 million page views per day.
That's the result.
And they are not artificial.
