Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs Intelligence Augmentation (IA) - SmartKarrot

Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs Intelligence Augmentation (IA)

What is Artificial Intelligence and what is Intelligence Augmentation? In this tug of war between AI vs. IA, who wins and holds a special space for the future?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs Intelligence Augmentation (IA)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs Intelligence Augmentation (IA)

With technological innovations taking place at an unprecedented rate, the world saw the birth of two gems – Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligence Augmentation (IA). Especially, in the last two decades, Science paved the way to revamped efficacy and effectiveness of automatized work. How has the automation helped the customers to adapt and facilitate better? Here, in this blog, we will walk you through the typical differences between AI vs IA and will reveal some of their real-time applications in our lives. 

Table of Contents

  • What is Artificial Intelligence?
  • What is Intelligence Augmentation?
  • AI vs IA
  • Real-Time Applications of AI in Customer Success
  • Real-Time Applications of IA in our lives

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence or AI, refers to the intelligence demonstrated by the machinery in contrast to the intelligence shown by a human. Simply put, it focuses on working and reacting just like a human does, but only aims to perform better. It has been specifically programmed to apprehend reasoning, problem-solving, planning, natural voice recognition, and knowledge too.

According to a recent report by PwC, investment in AI products will have a huge effect on GDP by 2030. Virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri and autonomous automobiles are set to boost GDP for local economies of up to 14%. The same report also forecasts that AI implementations across various sectors are projected to yield 15.7 trillion dollars over a span of ten years.

What is Intelligence Augmentation?

Intelligence Augmentation or IA’s concepts revolve around augmenting human intelligence rather than replacing it. Some of its other names include assistive intelligence, intelligence amplification, cognitive augmentation, or machine augmented intelligence. This technology works to augment human intelligence and their decision-making functions. In fact the tools developed by IA can be deployed for many other purposes such as the creation of knowledge bases, image processing tools, natural language tools and electronic discovery.

AI vs IA

The two buzzwords, artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation have often been interchangeably used. But the difference should be starkly stated. AI is used when you are referring to a broader concept of machines that can perform tasks that humans would tag as intelligent or smart. Intelligence augmentation is deployed when technology is used to support and complement human cognitive functions. IA places humans at the core of the system and decision-making, whereas AI places technology at the core. Moreover, IA systems can overcome the limitations imposed by system boundaries on AI systems.

Augmented intelligence is a substitute formulation of artificial intelligence that focuses on AI’s role in assisting and promoting human capabilities. Intelligence augmentation showcases the proceeding effect of AI in expanding human creativity. However, it can be said that IA can blend the results of AI algorithms and lead humans to enhance their performance. Both of them play a crucial role in organizations, such as, financial institutes where analysts can predict using data rather than just describing them. Here are some of their differences in our daily lives and work:

AI vs IA
Source: cbi-blog

Real-Time Applications of AI in Customer Success

  • Automated Customer Support and Chatbots: Today, you will barely find an online site that does not feature its instant 24×7 live chatbot option. It has become vital to free up the customer rep’s time so that they can better utilize their time on urgent cases rather than the basic ones. That is where the AI-enabled personal assistants or chatbots are capable of taking up the easy ones whilst the critical ones can be taken up by the human reps. Look at this example here from eBay’s ShopBot. This is a rather advanced version that will find you a Father’s Day gift within your budget and even locate a listing by an uploaded picture.
Example of Shopbot on Automated Customer Support and Chatbots
Source: altexsoft
  • Predictive Personalization of Customer Experience: Personalization is the biggest real-time application of a customer’s journey. All they need from you is a product that best matches their needs. AI-enabled analytics such as Google Analytics can render you enough information about the customer’s device, the time they spend on your page, their geographical locations and whatnot. Additionally, you probably store other types of data, such as behavior data about users’ clicks and actions or information from your CRM.
  • Virtual Assistants: We have all embedded the help of a virtual assistant in each of our lives. Be it Apple’s Siri or Google’s Google Assistant. These assistants have helped customers get their queries resolved within fraction of seconds. Further, they can help manage customer relations and deal with the incoming inquiries, respond to phone calls and e-mails, and render technical support as and when required.
  • Automated Workflows: It is no surprise that Artificial Intelligence has made our lives easier by automating the processes and workflows. Gone are the days when human had to sit back to relentlessly draw things out manually. This wasted both the customer as well as the company’s time. With AI’s automation, workflows can be conducted seamlessly.

Real-Time Applications of IA in Customer Success

  • IA-enabled customer analytics discover high risk/high potential customers: It is no fun and games to see your customers leave. But you still can keep them entertained with the deployment of IA in your systems. They can easily discover who are the customers that are on a higher alarming rate of churning away and will notify you the same.
  • Forecasts Sales: Deploying AI-powered software can help you garner historical data bout the customer’s past purchases and help the sales department pull in better conclusions. It will also help you to know your least and most sought-after product. Further, it can forecast the products that can be promoted on a given date that can rev up your revenue bar. Things like these could have been surreal without the invasion of AI into our lives.
  • A greater understanding of data: With IA-enabled systems, you can now have a greater involvement as well as understanding of the customer’s data. You can now study their previous purchase patterns and analyze what are the products and services that they like and suggest them their favorites as per this furnished data.

Parting Thoughts

Undoubtedly, both the artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation have their own says in this game of two. While the former excels in some aspects, the latter in some other. On that note, it has become critical to understand the importance of human creativity in the development of each of these technologies. It needs to be seen that the unique creativity of the human does not fade away or take a backseat in any way.

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