It’s no secret that generative AI has driven improvements in creating, translating, summarizing, and even analyzing data and content.
Across the e-commerce industry, these advancements are beginning to work their way into your tech stack. We’re seeing a growing number of use cases where AI is helping brand owners and agency account managers save time on tedious tasks like data collection.
Yet, for as powerful as these new technologies can be, they won’t always change your life.
We will inevitably see software companies tout their gen AI capabilities… and once you use them, you’ll realize they don’t actually provide a real benefit to you, the end user.
How do you know if a company’s AI-powered technology is actually going to provide value for you? We have a few tips:
#1. Look at who made the software
Ultimately, an AI system is only as good as the people who build it. Is the team behind your software made up of domain experts, who ensure their gen AI tools are designed to actually solve problems?
Is the AI able to understand your requests when they’re written in the language of your industry? Or is the AI tool just a useless add-on?
Researching the team behind your software is a good way to feel confident in the technology you’re using. After all, an AI that isn’t programmed to understand the difference between ACOS and TACOS is not going to be of much use to you.
#2. Ensure your AI inputs are high-quality
Even the best AI system is only as good as what you put into it. If you are relying on an AI system that does not help you first organize and enrich your data, your outputs are not going to make any sense to you.
Let’s say you load your data into a software, and you ask the AI assistant to conduct an analysis on it. You want to ensure the software keeps essential context about your sub-brands or your Customer Life-Time value.
For that to happen, you need to be sure your data sets are well-organized and well-oiled.
As AI capabilities become more and more accessible, the quality of input will have a huge bearing on the quality of output from these models. A software system that can’t do this for you is not going to be worth your time.
#3. Test the outputs of the AI system
Any software company can promise the world with their AI—but does that AI technology actually produce what you need it to? Is the software really able to understand and interpret the specifics of your requests, and generate the right output?
Let’s say you’re using an AI system to help you generate code for a SQL query. This is an exciting use case, of course—but in general, when you ask AI to write technical code, you should still verify the output. Coding is technical enough that the AI system can be prone to error or confusion.
An AI system might misunderstand your use case, and generate code that’s subtly but importantly different from your original request.
You want to be sure the code that the gen AI model creates actually corresponds to your initial request. Most importantly, make sure the AI is able to troubleshoot problems effectively.
If you run into a technical problem, such as an aggregation threshold error, is the AI able to understand what went wrong and articulate the problem for you? If not, then it may not be with your time.
#4. Ensure you have customer service at your fingertips
AI can simplify your life in so many ways, but it can’t fully replicate the experience of troubleshooting a problem with a human who knows your industry well.
If you run into a problem with your software, or if you have a custom build you want implemented, the AI can’t do it for you. Always, always, always ensure you have a team of experts at your disposal to help.
We feel strongly that your software partner should have a highly responsive group of human assistants who can jump in and help whenever you need it.
A software platform that prioritizes AI at the expense of human expertise is only going to become a headache quickly. Be sure you’re working with a team that can do both.
(At Intentwise, for what it’s worth, our new AI assistant is designed to check all of these boxes. Watch the demo of Wizi—and sign up to be the first to get access—here.)
