Pairing the efficiency of machines with human intelligence can improve a wide range of issues for businesses and consumers alike. http://ow.ly/VDtI30rw7Aq

In this episode of Decoded, Melanie Nuce, SVP of GS1 US, discusses the realities of A.I., machine learning, and automation and the real-world opportunities they present to industry. Quality, structured data is critical to the ingestion, digestion, and dissemination of data by AI models for the benefit of human interpretation. http://ow.ly/VDtI30rw7Aq

What's happening in the world of artificial intelligence? We've been led to believe that robots are going to take over the world, and that artificial intelligence is actually achieving the same level as human intelligence. But I would suggest to you that's not entirely true. Most of the experts that I have the opportunity to work with have really highlighted the fact that artificial intelligence is slowly weaving its way into helping us make better business decisions. I like to say that the importance of data is so that I can accumulate it. We call that ingestion, so that I can analyze it. I like to call that digestion, and so that I can make valuable business decisions with it. We like to call that dissemination, so artificial intelligence is really about automating that in order to make humans more efficient at their jobs. One of the members of the GS1 US team likes to joke that macros are now called artificial intelligence, and I think there's been a lot of confusion in the world that anything becomes artificial intelligence. But if you can think about artificial intelligence being a level of machine learning, where you've trained a computer to ingest, digest, and disseminate data, that's going to make your decision-making process easier. That's the space that we've been working in. What does that mean for a business today? I think anyone who doesn't have an artificial intelligence strategy is already behind the eight ball. It's important to start assessing what capabilities can AI bring to your business in order to remove manual processes, reduce friction, and improve the quality of data that you exchange with partners, and at the end of the day be able to deliver to the consumer of the transparency, the rich content, the experience that they're looking for. Artificial intelligence is allowing us to take the best of what machines can do and pair that with human intelligence to deliver business benefits. We always like to say at GS1 US, it's the intersection of technology and standards that brings about a positive outcome. That's the space that we're trying to find ourselves in. In terms of artificial intelligence, what experts have told me is that structured data beats unstructured data 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That means the quality of your data is so critical. Your ability to exchange that data in a structured, consistent and standardized way with partners is critical. This will actually allow data scientists to build algorithms that can function at a much quicker learning capability than those that require a lot of supervision and a lot of managing. So, when you think about it, the goal is to make that intelligence intelligent, and in order to do that we have to feed it good data. That data is the basis upon which we're going to move forward in making decisions, driving new product assortments, fine-tuning our delivery mechanisms, really achieving that always on, always available experience that a consumer is looking for. I think in 2020, it's time for us to move beyond the concept or the wait and see phase, and really start putting algorithms to work for our business. There's a whole variety of technology partners out there in the community that are willing to help. But the best part is we're starting to learn from early forays into machine learning and artificial intelligence. What we know, is with the amount of data that's out there and now available, only machines are really going to be able to help us make sense of it all.