Artificial intelligence

Preparing your business to take a value-driven strategic approach to AI.

Power ahead with strategic AI that drives business value

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve rapidly, contemporary enterprises are turning to its many powerful applications to capitalise on market opportunities and help solve their most significant challenges.

From elevated customer experiences to supercharged employee productivity and even increased cybersecurity – there are infinite use cases for AI to make business more efficient and/or effective.

Working with you – Datacom's AI consultancy ensures a value-driven strategic approach that balances risk and rewards, and builds strong, safe foundations for the future. Not AI in a box, but custom solutions that drive real value with a long-term view of AI strategy.

Our approach is to co-create. As we plan, discover and design together with customers, our AI specialists will extend and strengthen your team with leading knowledge, multi-disciplinary expertise and best-practice methodologies.

Forrester predictions for the impact of AI

  • $23.3m

    Net present value over three years for a composite organisation aggregated from survey responses.
  • 80%

    Reduction of manual work and enabling employees to reallocate their time to higher-value work.
  • 150%

    Increase in work output when automating and scaling processes to benefit business growth.
  • 284%

    Return on investment (ROI), in benefits of $31,5 million versus cost of 8.2 million.

1. The Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) of Microsoft Azure AI, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, April 2023. Results are over three years for a composite organisation based on Interviewed customers

Datacom research report 2024

State of AI Index: AI Attitudes in NZ

The pace of AI evolution and uptake has continued to accelerate over the past year, seeing a positive shift in attitudes as more New Zealand businesses reap the benefits of AI. For industry and government alike, balancing opportunities and challenges while taking an innovative approach to AI evolution is of ongoing importance to ensure the country remains competitive.

For a second year, Datacom commissioned its annual survey of 200 senior business leaders to understand ongoing rates of AI adoption, maturity of existing AI governance and security, appetite for AI-specific legislation and experiences with AI usage.

Group of people collaborating in an office

Solving our greatest challenges with AI

Modern business is a constantly evolving landscape filled with complex challenges and promising opportunity. Our AI consultancy coupled with global market insights, customer insights and ICT industry narrative has identified today’s key customer challenges. Harnessing AI to drive transformation in these areas offers our customer’s the potential for powerful rewards.

Frequently asked questions

What is the definition of artificial intelligence (AI)?

AI is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence and problem-solving capabilities.

What are the common benefits of AI technology?

The common benefits of AI include automation, improved productivity, enhanced security and better decision making.

How does AI improve customer experience?

AI in customer experience improves customer satisfaction and operational efficiency in several ways. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants provide immediate responses to customer queries, ensuring 24/7 support and reducing customer wait times. By analysing vast amounts of data, AI helps businesses personalise recommendations and content, creating a more relevant and engaging experience. AI-driven analytics and sentiment analysis enable companies to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences, allowing for better-targeted marketing efforts and product enhancements. AI automates routine tasks, freeing up human agents to focus on complex issues, resulting in faster problem resolution and improved customer interactions. AI in customer experience leads to more efficient, responsive, and personalised interactions, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

How can artificial intelligence help businesses gain competitive advantage?

Transforming customer experience with AI and automation can help businesses gain a competitive advantage in several ways. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide instant, round-the-clock customer support, reducing response times and enhancing customer satisfaction. AI-driven analytics and predictive modeling enable businesses to gain deeper insights into customer behavior, allowing for more precise targeting and personalisation of marketing efforts, ultimately increasing conversion rates and revenue. Automation streamlines internal processes, reducing operational costs and improving efficiency, which can be passed on to customers in the form of lower prices or better service. AI helps identify emerging market trends and competitive threats, allowing businesses to adapt and innovate faster.

What’s the difference between artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)?

ML refers to the technologies and algorithms used by machines to analyse data enabling it to recognise patterns, make decisions, problem-solve and improve through experience. 

What is ‘dirty data’, and how can organisations ensure their data is ‘clean’?

Data that is not clean or ‘dirty data’ has issues such as having duplicates or being outdated, insecure, incomplete, inaccurate or inconsistent. The risk presented by dirty data is that if you are adopting AI tools and platforms that are using that faulty data, the AI outputs will also be flawed. For example, AI can be a powerful predictive tool and can identify patterns and trends within your business that you can use to guide strategic decisions, but if the data is off, then the AI analytics will be too. To avoid these risks and clean up their data, companies need to commit to regular data audits and implement assurance protocols.

What’s the difference between OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Microsoft Copilot?

ChatGPT is a natural language processing technology that uses machine learning, deep learning, and natural language understanding to answer questions mimicking human conversation and responding in an engaging way.  
 
Copilot is a more secure AI-powered digital assistant that integrates with Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams). Copilot is ideal for coding tasks, while ChatGPT is versatile for various conversational and creative purposes. 

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AI Attitudes research report

New research into the attitudes of business leaders towards AI adoption has revealed valuable insights.

Glossary of common terms

A

AI ethics

The moral principles that govern the use of AI to ensure it’s being used responsibly to ensure fair outcomes.

Algorithm

A set of instructions or procedures to perform or complete a task or solve a problem.

Application programming interface (API)

An agreement that defines how two applications that perform a specific task communicate with one another.

Augmented reality

An interactive experience combining the real and digital worlds using computer-generated content.

 

B

Big data

Data sets that enable organisations to make informed decisions by collecting and studying large volumes of complex data to reveal patterns or trends.

 

C

Chatbot

A tool that uses text and voice commands to imitate human conversation.

Cognitive computing

A computerised model that imitates the human thought process to learn and recognise patterns to complete tasks and/or problem solve.

Computer vision

Enables machines to extract insights from visual data to help enhance AI capabilities.

Conversational AI

AI-powered text or voice-based interactions to understand and interpret requests using natural language processing (NLP).

 

D

Data mining

Data mining organises large data sets to identify patterns enabling problem solving or improvements to be implemented. 

Data science platforms

Platforms that interpret data to develop strategies and discover actionable insights.

 

G

Generative AI

Uses artificial intelligence to create content – for example, text, video, images, or coding.

 

H

Hyperparameter

A parameter, or value, that an artificial intelligence model uses to learn.

 

L

Large language model (LLM)

An AI model that is trained to understand language and generate human-like content by using large amounts of text.

 

M

Machine learning

Incorporated computer science, coding and mathematics to develop algorithms and models that enable machines to recognise and predict trends and behaviours using data, without human intervention.

Multi-modal AI

A machine learning model that processes information from various modals, such as images, text and video.

 

N

Natural language processing (NLP)

An AI model that enables computers to recognise text and speech by understanding the spoken and written language.

 

O

OpenAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research organisation based in the US developing several language models, including ChatGPT.

Open-source AI

The application of using source code that is freely available for modification and redistribution to develop AI resources.

 

P

Pattern recognition

The use of algorithms to detect, analyse and identify patterns in data to allow for information to be categorised.

Predictive analytics

The analysis of data using technology to make predictions on what will happen in a specific timeframe using historical information and data patterns.

Prescriptive analysis

The analysis of data using technology to enable organisations to make informed strategic decisions by using possible scenarios, past and present performance and other resources.

Prompt

Data that is fed into an AI system by a user to get a requested output.

 

R

Robotics

Autonomous systems and sensing technologies.

 

S

Speech recognition

A method in which a computer interprets words spoken aloud and converts them into readable text. Also known as voice recognition. 

Structured data

Searchable information – for example, dates, phone numbers or product identification numbers.

Supervised learning

The use of classified output data to generate correct algorithms and train machines.

 

T

Token

An entire word (or part of a word) that a large language model (LLM) uses to understand and generate human-like content.

Training data

Examples used by an AI system to learn, identify patterns and create new content.

Transfer learning

Previously learned data is applied to new tasks and activities by a machine learning system.

 

U

Unstructured data

The use of unclassified and unlabelled data to train algorithms.

 

V

Virtual reality

An immersive reality experience that blends digital and real worlds bringing to life experiential user experience.

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