Artificial Intelligence a boon for Startups
A lot has already been said and predicted about artificial intelligence (AI). There are numerous companies across varied industries leveraging AI. Entertainment industry is one such industry that has made AI appear as a virtual reality through the timeless movies like I-Robot, Terminator, Matrix and the list goes on.
When it comes to jobs, AI has taken over a few. To give an example is the Patrick`s terminal at port Sydney where the 45 AutoStrads are doing what the dockworkers were hired for. It is now a fully automated zone.
This could be considered as a darker side of AI. But there is also a brighter side to look at.
Artificial Intelligence has created numerous jobs and will continue to do so leading to enhanced productivity and overall economic development of the countries. The high priority area being need of humans to create and design systems, train and maintain systems and even more.
With the present boom in the startup ecosystem across the globe, more and more startups are evaluating the AI approach. The dominant industries for AI are healthcare, manufacturing, finance, transportation, retail and education to start with. Startups across all industries are exploring artificial intelligence to gain investors and customers. According to an article in Forbes, investors across the globe have backed more AI companies in the 1st quarter of 2016 than any other quarter. As per an Inc, report, AI startups have made more than a billion dollars in exits. The AI wave has created a high tide amongst tech biggies as well like Oracle, Google, IBM and Facebook. According to Gartner analysts, enterprises and businesses are adopting AI for decision making and also predict that AI will enable analytical decision making upto 50%.
Indian startups is one of the upcoming markets to adopt the AI wave at a fast pace. As per Tracxn, a start-up tracker, 300 startups are using some form of AI. To name a few,
· Sigtuple builds products to aid in the diagnosis process. They use machine learning for automated analysis, enhancing accuracy and reducing the diagnosis time.
· Signzy provides digital onboarding solutions for banks, NBFCs and other financial institutions by creating a `Digital Trust system`. They use AI to detect the authenticity of information and digital forgery of documents. This reduces the probability of human fraud and reduces the operational costs for the banks.
· Staqu leverages deep learning and natural language processing-based algorithms to provide reverse image search solutions. Cataloguing has always incurred huge costs and time in the fashion industry. Automation of this process is a welcome disruption for the industry.
According to a global report (`The AISpring-Innovations for the next decade`)by Zinnov, investor funding has gone up by 10 fold over the past 5 five years in AI startups, from $94 million in 2011 $1,049 million in 2016. Angel investors and venture capital funds are keen on tech startups working on machine learning, artificial intelligence because of their ability to scale rapidly and opportunity for early exit. According to a BS (business standard) news article the global AI market is expected to grow to $5.05billion by 2020 and likely to generate $47 billion revenue. 51 companies in Crunchbase`s artificial intelligence category raised rounds in the first quarter of this year. There is more than enough buzz in the investor community for AI startups as they are ardently searching for them.
Easy access to connects, devices, huge amount of data and infrastructure provided by big organizations have simplified the adoption of AI for startups than ever before. Startups are able to reach out to the end users, their customers with new and enhanced product and service experience. The avenues, resources and opportunities are endless for startups as the AI virus spreads across the globe as wild fire.
