From incredible advances in autonomous vehicles and 3D printing to broadening application across banking, medicine, manufacturing and retail – to name a few — artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. Every company worth its salt will have spent time assessing the effect this digital disruption will have on their business and their industry. Many companies will also have invested large sums of money in testing various forms of AI – typically targeting operational efficiencies through robotic process automation or improved digital self-service through chatbots. Yet few will have managed to move beyond the pilot phase into full-scale production. In most cases, this is not due to the technology but the existing business reality. Data continues to be stored in different places and in different formats. Many operating systems are not fully integrated. And many decisions and actions continue to be taken by staff, outside of systems, and it is not that easy to automate these when key pie...
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