AIIoT – The powerful combination for a smart tomorrow

The world is evolving at a rapid pace, with businesses evolving at high speeds. We are now in a phase as vital as the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. Technology is changing the role of businesses in our daily lives. Two technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are key to this evolution.

While AI and IoT are not new technologies, they are now being fused together to create a new emerging technology, AIIoT. This innovation has the power to modernize the business world on a scale never seen before.

For companies that seek to add value to their current IoT project or strategize new tasks with IoT, the role of AI is vast and opportunities are plentiful.

AI and IoT – Redefining businesses

The combination of these two technologies, AI and IoT, is helping businesses rethink the way they work. While IoT helps organizations increase the scale of device communication over the internet, AI paves way for real-time data analytics and facilitates informed decision making. The two complement each other, each helping the other evolve and perform to their best capabilities.

Enter AIIoT

When two of the most powerful technologies, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, come together, a new trend in tech is born – AIIoT. The two work in harmony to give businesses new dimensions and capabilities. The way they work is comparable to the human body. IoT is like the physical body that collects data from various sources via its sensors. It then transmits the data via the internet, which is the central nervous system. AI acts as the brain, processing the data and helping us make informed decisions.

An amalgam of these technologies, AIIoT powers systems to be intelligent and connected, giving them self-correcting and self-healing capabilities.

The ability of these devices to collect data is at an all-time high. With these capabilities comes an array of risks and threats. While security and privacy are vital concerns, an experienced operator will take care of those issues. Now here’s the big question: How do we handle the collected data?

IoT devices are now everywhere. This means we harvest more data every day. Fields like customer service, manufacturing, agriculture, and even our homes, produce large amounts of data. Any device with a chipset that connects to the internet transmits data. Handling this data is a major concern that businesses face.

That’s where artificial intelligence comes in. Machine Learning (ML), a subset of AI, simplifies problem-solving. ML analyzes the collected data and assists IoT in identifying the design and defects in the data collection process.

Collecting data about everyday things like temperature, humidity, air pressure, light, and so on is not an easy task. The new, powerful combination of IoT and AI makes tracking 20 times faster and more precise than conventional methods.

AI complements IoT in all kinds of scenarios. It helps the system reduce network traffic, when the sensors generate a huge volume of data. Conducting thorough analysis, AI filters out unnecessary data. Another use case is Amazon’s new supermarket that operates without human cashiers. The sensors detect when you add or remove an item in your cart, while AI helps process the data. When you leave the store, the system debits the amount from your connected payment source. The same technology makes driverless cars a possibility.

The advantages of this powerful combo

As with any cutting-edge technology, AIIoT benefits businesses in multiple ways.

Evade costly downtime

Unplanned downtime, like a breakdown, causes businesses heavy losses. For example, a power outage in the manufacturing sector could result in the halt of all processes and even cause expensive machines to be replaced.

With AIIoT comes predictive maintenance of machines. Machines study the generated data to understand when their performance is reduced. Analytics helps them predict when a failure could potentially occur so that they prepare to follow the necessary protocols. The system is also able to schedule maintenance of machines. According to Deloitte, predictive analysis saves the time taken to schedule maintenance by around 20-50% and reduces the overall maintenance cost by 5-10%.

Increase in the operational efficiency

AIIoT is capable of much more than just avoiding downtime. This technology also plays a crucial role in improving operational efficiency. With the power of machine learning to generate fast predictions and deep insights, AI automates a plethora of tasks.

For example, AIIoT-based devices in an industry, like a manufacturing unit, can analyze machines, understand their performance, and make adjustments accordingly. When done using conventional methods, these processes are very time-consuming. With the power analytics behavior of AI and ML, the industry can study and make changes in a jiffy, increasing the operational efficiency of the business tremendously.

Paving way for new products and services

IoT, along with AI, is creating an array of new products and services in various industries. An example of this is how some companies use drones powered by AI-based robotics to inspect their devices and identify issues using the data the devices collect. The agriculture industry uses similar surveillance techniques to identify diseases or other issues among their crops. As for the medical industry, hospitals use AIIoT to monitor patients. AI also enables patients to control their room environment and communicate with the hospital staff via voice commands.

Automobile giants like Rolls-Royce have come up with an AIIoT-enabled aeronautics engine maintenance system that learns the performance of the engines and sells their operational insights to airlines. Other players use IoT and AI to facilitate health diagnoses and predictive maintenance of vehicles.

Businesses are now looking for innovative ways to use AIIoT and generate new revenue streams, taking their businesses to new heights.

Enhanced risk management

Organizations now use AIIoT to understand and predict a plethora of risks they could face, and set up a quick response action to mitigate them. Risk management helps businesses control their financial losses, enhance their worker safety, and protect them from cyber threats.

For manufacturing businesses the safety of the workers in factories is a priority. With AIIoT, a factory uses various sensors or overhead cameras, which collect data that ML then analyzes. This information is crucial in determining the heat stress a worker experiences during their shifts. Banks use AI-enabled surveillance systems to identify suspicious activities at their ATMs in real-time. Insurers use AIIoT to identify the usage of vehicles and create insurance plans accordingly. As for the government, they use AI and IoT together to detect crimes and mark areas where criminal activity is higher.

Concluding thoughts

The combination of IoT with AI is now becoming an undeniably essential part of many businesses. IoT vendors, who are growing in number, offer AI as a bare minimum support along with their services. With wearables, smart homes, smart buildings, smart industries, and computer vision-based surveillance devices becoming a norm and even a necessity in this evolving world, the scope of AIIoT is ever-expanding.

Want to know more about AIIoT and how it can benefit your business? Say hi to take it a step further.