FUTURE
USHERING BUSINESSES INTO THE
‘Age of With’
We have entered the ‘Age of With’, where people harness technology to identify unique advantages through analytics and artificial intelligence. Deloitte’s Catherine Stretton believes the time is right for AI implementation. By Victoria Williams
A
ccording to research firm Gartner, by 2021 artificial intelligence (AI) will create $2.9 trillion of business value and 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity. AI is essentially a computer or software system that uses algorithms to make it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform or simulate human-like behaviour or tasks. For a number of years, companies have targeted lowvalue opportunities for task-based automation, but increasingly seek to incorporate more advanced analytical and AI technologies. Catherine Stretton, Partner at Deloitte Analytics, believes the time is right for AI implementation. Corporate interest has moved beyond conference discussions to tangible business cases. Catherine comments: “In 2016 the market wasn’t ready, but interest has slowly built over the years. Clients are interested in the beautiful problem-solving abilities of AI. We seldom talk about the technical details of the technologies themselves, but rather the solutions they offer.”
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When applied to finance, digital technologies allow CFOs to manage traditional responsibilities like internal controls, compliance, and closing the books faster and with more efficiency. For the finance team, less time is spent on routine tasks and more focus on understanding the levers of revenue growth. There is an obvious business case for AI in risk management. Here, these technologies are adept at spotting patterns in historical data. AI can be used to detect fraud, uncover money-laundering or pinpoint customers with high credit risk profiles. But combing through data is not where it ends. Technology is also able to learn and identify new methods in hacking or cyber-attacks. For Catherine, one of the biggest competitive advantages that AI offers is to slash the time needed in forecasting and financial modelling. This is bringing forecasting ever closer to real-time. In the mining industry, for example, it used to take weeks to do a production forecast. Today, technology makes this possible in a few hours.