What Big Data and AI Can Do for Your Business

Your business requires information and insights that will lead to successful outcomes, from executive decisions to marketing campaigns.

In the past, companies amassed Big Data to improve decisions and sales, gathering data on processes and customer behavior.

But what happens when Big Data becomes too big or too cumbersome to make any sense by those who collect it?

Just storing more data isn’t a solution. You need big-time analytics to help you make sense of it all in less time.

More and more today, the emerging technologies of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are coming to the rescue of those getting bogged down in their data and manual interpretations.

Somewhere deep down in those numerous data sets of Big Data are revelations you need to know to improve various aspects of your business offerings and marketing strategy. AI can help.

In this blog post, find out how Big Data and AI can join forces and positively impact your business.

Big Data and AI: How Do They Work Together?

Big Data, or large datasets, accumulate for the purpose of extraction and analysis to further business objectives. 

These information assets can lead to valuable insights and enhanced decision-making across departments.

In terms of marketing, Big Data relates to capturing buyer preferences, trends, and user behavior, all things that will benefit your digital marketing strategy.

Where the excitement lies today, however, is in how Big Data and AI can work together.

The machine learning systems of AI are specially designed to continuously learn and build more robust skills from large datasets. 

Along the way, AI algorithms gain skills, including pattern recognition and ways to improve expanding features.

If you’re wondering how much data is too much for AI to work with, the answer is the more you have, the better. 

AI gets smarter and smarter the more data it is exposed to, so gather away for the best results now and in the future.

How can AI benefit Big Data, and how can they work together? 

Here are a few ways:

1. AI provides the newest data analytics methods

With the advent of AI in Big Data, you are no longer stuck with query/SQL methods of extracting usable data. 

Gone also are the time-consuming approaches used to determine what that extracted data actually means for your business.

By employing AI machine learning to analyze data, the requirement for tedious manual data sorting and comprehension is reduced.

2. AI and humans work more efficiently together in managing big data analysis

While AI is effective at speeding up the analytical process and making it more efficient, human processes are still required.

In other words, AI eliminates the need for so much human involvement in the process of data analysis, but people still have a crucial role to play. 

That role can now be more efficient, taking the insights gained using AI with Big Data and applying them effectively in the business.

3. AI helps eliminate data issues

Although Big Data is abundant, not all data is of value or quality to meet your business requirements.

AI and its machine learning capabilities and algorithms can help with this by cleaning up that data in less time. 

For example, its algorithms can detect missing values and ensure consistent terminology. 

They can also identify similar records using different descriptions or technology.

Think of how much effort and time this AI function alone can save you and your marketing department.

Overall, you can think of the relationship between Big Data and Artificial Intelligence as a reciprocal or a synergistic one. One needs the other to succeed.

What Can Big Data and AI Do for Your Business?

Artificial Intelligence can unlock the secrets hiding in your Big Data, providing beneficial business insights to facilitate your decision-making.

Data-driven strategies have long been at the forefront of the actions of businesses around the world. 

Big Data exists across sectors, from banking to healthcare, so finding ways to use it to gain insights is essential. 

This is where AI comes in and can help you navigate past your competitors.

By combining your Big Data with AI, you can also gain access to information leading to new ideas to grow and expand more quickly.

To break it down, Big Data and AI together offer valuable benefits to your business, including:

1. Delivering valuable insights faster

With the increasing capacity to analyze large data sets quicker and with more efficiency, identifying patterns and trends becomes easier. 

The use of AI not only saves your business time, but also provides the valuable insights needed to make better decisions.

2. Implementing time-saving automation

Another way a Big Data and AI partnership can assist your business is by automating time-consuming tasks. 

These tasks include screening and cleansing data, so you have only quality data remaining.

Automation of processes can also run data comparisons in the background, alerting you to things needing attention.

3. Boosting the level of efficiency

Insights derived by AI can help your business address inefficiencies more quickly and design better processes that are also cost-effective.

These insights can benefit your marketing strategy, identifying inefficient campaigns and other parts of your digital marketing plan.

Efficiency is also boosted due to improved automation processes and the ability to act quickly in circumstances it once took days or weeks to discover.

4. Discovering hidden opportunities

In the past, extremely large datasets were all but impossible to analyze fully, leaving a lot of potential opportunities hidden.

Potentially, these might include you missing out on opportunities for better targeting your buyer personas and creating content that answers more of their questions and captures their motivations.

Insights into your target audiences and their motivations are key to designing effective marketing campaigns, so AI could soon become your new best friend.

Whether you are a corporation or small business, data collection and analysis are at the heart of what you do.

Big Data and AI: The Impact on Marketing Teams

Marketing, in particular, will benefit in a variety of additional ways when using Big Data and AI together.

This union can help you get and keep customers by identifying their behavioral patterns.

You should apply what you learn to improve campaigns, boost brand loyalty, improve the customer experience, and even generate higher conversions.

Big Data and AI can also guide your content marketing strategy, a key to reaching your potential customers along their buyer’s journey. 

Artificial intelligence algorithms, for example, are becoming more adept at generating content based on the data being analyzed.

Besides that, AI and Big Data can:

• Provide a full view of your customers, so you can devise better-fitting buyer personas in your digital marketing strategy.
• Provide more information to help with forecasting (such as with retail seasonal forecasting) and price optimization.
• Assist with identifying risks and ways to mitigate them.
• Lead to better optimization and personalization of digital marketing campaigns.
  
  

AI and Big Data Applications

More and more today, companies are beginning to realize the value of utilizing AI to power their Big Data. 

A sampling of how certain businesses in different sectors are accomplishing this already includes the following.

Big Data and AI in the Retail/food and beverage sector: Starbucks

Starbucks has long been innovative in its business model and marketing strategy. 

Today, they go the extra mile to personalize emails utilizing data collected about customers’ past purchases on their app and rewards program.

At the heart of this strategy is their usage of Big Data and AI. 

The company infuses AI-enabled capabilities to help generate personalized emails for over 400,000 customers, featuring their latest offers and promotions.

Big Data and AI in the Retail/energy sector: Shell

To find ways to reduce costs and maintain inventory in relation to managing their oil drilling machines, Shell relies heavily on their data collection and analysis.

The data consists of information on the 3,000 parts of oil drilling machinery prone to failure at some point and vendor data on when that might occur. 

This data is at the core of their spare parts inventory strategy, helping them keep the most needed parts in stock and selecting strategic locations to store them.

Big Data and AI in the supply chain sector: UPS

Handling over 19 million packages a day is no small feat. 

UPS optimizes its operations in this sphere by relying on its Big Data to reveal necessary information to make informed decisions.

Collection of data from multiple sources, including vehicles and customers, leads to decisions on delivery routes made with the help of an algorithm in their On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation system.

UPS also uses Big Data to determine where to place more vehicles (higher demand) and identify ways to speed up delivery times.

Wrap Up

Big Data, with the help of AI technology, can provide insights for your business that can then be incorporated in a variety of ways to accomplish your most important goals. 

In other words, by joining forces, Big Data and AI can positively impact your business.

Are you ready to find out what is hiding deep within your Big Data with AI?

To find out how to benefit from AI in your marketing strategy, listen in on this conversation with Paul Roetzer, CEO of PR 20/20, and the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute.