POSTS

We are currently living in an era of a paradigm shift, where dumb computers are becoming smarter because of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This will lead to a change in many aspects of our lives, especially with tech being used all around us.

One of the biggest ways we are seeing AI change the tech landscape is the internet, where a lot of interactions are now fueled by AI. From the algorithms that feed us cute cat videos, to ones that suggest which products we can buy, as well as the customer support we go to when something goes wrong.

Let’s take a look at how artificial intelligence is going to shape online experiences in 2024 and beyond.

• Brief History of AI in Online Experiences
• AI for Personalized Content and Recommendations
• Customer Service Powered by AI
• Enhanced Search and Information Retrieval
• Content Creation and Moderation
• Future Trends and Developments
• The Need to Address Ethical Concerns With AI Use

​Brief History of AI in Online Experiences

The evolution of tech in the last century is a testament to the potential of a human’s mind. From the invention of the first electric computer to having the entire world’s knowledge in the palm of your hand, every leap in tech has been driven by the need to overcome a limitation and expand our capabilities.

Artificial Intelligence is the next big step in this journey.

First, there was just one algorithm that worked the same way for everyone, but now, the algorithms can change their parameters depending of the user. This helps with things the content suggestions, product recommendations as well as online chatbots and virtual assistants.

AI for Personalized Content and Recommendations

Believe it or not, AI has always been used in one form or another to provide better experiences for users on the internet.

One of its biggest examples is Google's search engine, which can provide relevant suggestions to users based on their interests, search habits, and history, which leads to more results that are relevant to the user's query as well as more engaging.

Not only this, social media websites like Instagram, X, and Facebook also use AI to suggest content that aligns with the user's interests. The best part is that most of the time, the user doesn't even realize that they are watching personalized content suggested by AI algorithms. You can even do this experiment right now! Just open your preferred social media app. Let's say you start watching content related to multiplayer video games. You're going to start seeing content related to video games on your feed.

Similarly, marketplace websites like eBay and Amazon also use recommendation algorithms to suggest items to users they might be interested in.

There are a lot of benefits to personalized content or recommendations by AI:

* The content can be more engaging and relevant for the users.

* AI personalized content can save a lot of time for the users since they don't have to sift through irrelevant content.

* It leads to better decision-making for the user since it addresses their pain points.

* AI-driven marketing can lead to more conversions by delivering content specific to the user.

Customer Service Powered by AI

Automated customer service is also becoming more of a thing because of improvements in AI. When implemented properly, it can help provide a more personalized and seamless customer support experience for the user.

AI-powered customer support tools can help automate experience as well as help agents, which can ultimately save time and money. Plus it uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to be able to  communicate with customers.

Here are some of the benefits of using AI in customer support:

* Improved Customer Satisfaction: Fast, reliable, and convenient customer service is crucial to ensure the satisfaction of your customers. AI chatbots can provide 24/7 customer support which can help eliminate waiting times.

* Increase Agent Efficiency: Service agents have to do a lot of tedious tasks throughout a call. AI can help handle those tasks which can help reduce a lot of that load and increase efficiency.

* Personalize Customer Experience: AI can share a customer’s insights with their agent which can help them tackle the customer’s request better.

* Tackling Demands: Customers reach out to support through channels like voice, e-mail, and text chat. AI can help automate and solve a lot of customer queries, which can then help manage the higher demands of customers.

Enhanced Search and Information Retrieval

AI and Machine Learning (ML) can be used to offer several advantages for both users and information providers.

A great example of this is the virtual assistants we use on our smartphones like Google Assistant and Siri. Now, you can simply ask your preferred assistant to help you with the weather, or create reminders and they can perform the tasks for you.

With smart assistants, you can make high-level queries. For example, let's say you want a 100-word summary of a 2000-word article. You can simply activate your assistant and ask it to summarize it for you. The assistant will then perform data analysis and summarize the article for you.

One great example of this is the recently released Arc Search app, which can summarize entire web pages for you with a simple pinching gesture on the screen.

Another great example of AI being used to shape online experience is real-time translation. This allows you to instantly translate any text on the screen with a button press. Not only that, this tool also allows you to translate spoken text on the go. You can simply speak something and the translator will speak out in the translated language.

Content Creation and Moderation

Automated content creation with AI has become a hot topic, especially with tools like ChatGPT and Bing AI. These, combined with marketing automation tools, can use the best SEO strategies and populate content briefs without needing a lot of input from the user.

AI can be used to create content like social media posts and news articles. In E-commerce, AI can be used to create SEO-friendly product descriptions which can save a lot of time for large inventories.

While content creation through AI has become effortless, it’s their moderation that needs more work. The content you generate might not contain the appropriate language or might not align with your brand values. This is why human intervention is almost always recommended.

To make the moderation process easy, AI can be used as well. You can use the proper keywords and prompts to instruct AI to check the written content for any errors and correct them.

Future Trends and Developments

While AI has been around for a long time, its popularity and capabilities have seen an exponential boost in the past few years.

Currently, one of the biggest challenges in AI is that a lot of mainstream AI software works entirely online. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, even for menial tasks like telling the number of months in a year, needs to connect to the internet.

This is mainly because all the processing is essentially done on the server rather than on the device. In 2024 and beyond, we expect to see this change. While it's impossible for everything to be done on a device since a lot of things need an internet connection to get data.

With more manufacturers integrating neural engines into their CPUs, we can expect more on-device capabilities to be added. Until then, we’re going to need a fast internet connection to use AI features on our devices.

Even with on-device AI capabilities, like Apple Intelligence coming out in late 2024, it’s important to have a fast internet connection like Xfinity, to ensure a smooth AI experience.

The Need to Address Ethical Concerns With AI Use

There's no debate that AI is an exceptionally powerful tool. But, in the wrong hands, the use of AI can be disastrous.

This is why it’s important to understand the basic ethical standards when using AI, which can help regulate the deployment of the technology.

Without the proper standards, AI can make biased and unfair decisions which can end up violating user privacy and even create concerns about human rights. It's important to use machine learning algorithms in a way where these concerns can be avoided.

A lot of people have concerns about their data being used to train AI models. In addition to that, AI also has access to the data you share. This data can be a part of a privacy breach if not treated properly.

Overall, AI has quickly become an extremely powerful tool in our arsenal. The use of AI allows for enhanced personalization and better customer service.

But, it’s important to keep in mind that AI shouldn’t replace genuine human interaction. Users want to have something they can trust, which is where humans come in to build a relationship with them, something that AI can never replace.