Conversations about AI are everywhere, but what are the industries that are embracing these advances now that should lead to more data science jobs in the future?
Cybersecurity
Surprisingly this doesn’t lead the list because of the successful efforts to use bots to find holes in security within organizations. It leads the list because the real expected growth here is in cyberattacks. The use of AI powered bots to learn, adapt and evade cybersecurity. The creation of phishing techniques that are more effective because they have been designed by AI. “62% of Black Hat USA Conference attendees in July of 2017 agreed there is a high possibility that AI could be used by hackers for offensive purposes.” We aren’t proposing job growth on the criminal side, but real expertise is needed and will increasingly be needed to combat this internet terrorism.
Automotive
Driverless cars immediately comes to mind. This gets all the news and attention but is probably not going to become a widespread reality for many years. The real growth here is embedding AI services like Alexa and Siri in cars to allow drivers and passengers to control technology through natural language voice commands. Mercedes Benz already has a personal assistant in some of their cars and BMW, Mini and Kia are introducing the service in 2018.
Healthcare
Yes, the amount of data available on an individual patient or clusters of patients and the ability to quickly process it is leading to real advances in research and development. AI’s most exciting contribution in this industry is in better diagnosis. The best human diagnosticians are those with gray hair. They’ve observed many patients and variations of a disease or medical condition. These diagnosis often aren’t black and white in their presentation. AI can accelerate that learning and expertise through processing more symptoms into an accurate diagnosis than any one doctor can do in ten lifetimes.The BBC reported on new research using AI to outperform experienced cardiologists in spotting early signs of heart disease. The report states that even the best doctors get it wrong about 20% of the time. Feeding the same scans and xrays through a machine learning program can more accurately spot signs of heart disease than experienced doctors could.
Ecommerce and Customer Service
The dramatic changes in the retail industry are driving fierce competition and fast innovation. Anyone who has shopped online has seen AI in action through targeted product recommendations as you move on from exploring a purchase. Customer service standardization through AI, the majority of questions are where is my order or can I change the delivery address, can send millions of dollars to retailer’s bottom line.
Video Streaming
Like targeted online retail product promotions video streaming services, like Netflix, engage and keep their customers through recommendation algorithms. The data on customer viewing is also driving how these services make their buying and producing decisions. Netflix alone has 700 originally produced shows.
Finance
The financial industry has often led the pack in their ability to process and effectively use their treasure trove of data. They have had the size and the resources to capture historical data, transactional data, and real time social media activity. Live market event simulations and predictive modeling are giving them opportunities to shine in the future.
