Cloud computing company Salesforce announced that its artificial intelligence program, called Einstein, has been sitting in on weekly executive meetings for more than year. While on a World Economic Forum panel, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff explained that Einstein’s contributions have been extremely valuable, reports CNBC.
The AI has already questioned one employee’s sales report. "I ask Einstein, 'I heard what everybody said but what do you actually think?'" said Benioff, according to CNBC. "And Einstein said, 'Well, I don't think this executive is going to make their number, I'm so sorry.'"
AI seems to be rising in the ranks. The technology is already being used to manage Uber and Lyft drivers. In both cases, an algorithm sets the driver’s schedules, keeps track of their performance and even decides how much they should be paid.
Meanwhile, Japanese technology company Hitachi has employed AI to oversee a warehouse management system. By analyzing swathes of data, the technology can adjust work orders according to demand fluctuation in real time. Its efforts, according to a company statement, have resulted in a 8 percent improvement in efficiency.
These examples illustrate how AI is infiltrating the workforce at every level. However, while AI is better at crunching big data, its decision-making and idea-generation skills remain limited. “AIs still need to be taught to perform efficiently in contingency situations, generate hypotheses, and think big,” reads an article by Pavel Cherkashin for Venturebeat. “A good sense of humor would be useful too.”