The AI-Powered Enterprise. Seth Earley

      

      Praise for THE AI-POWERED ENTERPRISE

      “AI promises to provide the next ‘turn of the crank’ in business automation. However, purely statistical machine learning alone won’t achieve this on its own. This book provides prescriptive guidance in the context of real business case studies to drive success instead of disappointment. It’s a great resource to separate the hype from the reality and a practical guide to achieve real business outcomes using AI technology.”

      —Peter N. Johnson, MetLife Fellow, SVP, MetLife

      “AI and its various meanings bring a whole new dimension to how enterprises operate. In his book The AI-Powered Enterprise, Seth has honed in on the methodology behind how AI impacts content—the one constant tangible for every enterprise. A must-read for any enterprise interested in what their content says about them—from a data miner to a taxonomist to a casual blogger. The clarity of the various aspects of content design is super impressive.”

      —Eeshita Grover, Director of Marketing, Cisco

      “Artificial intelligence holds the power to transform your business and your career, but there will be plenty of challenges along the way. Earley demystifies the topic and provides a practical road map for applying smarter processes and technologies across the enterprise. Now is the time to explore AI, and this book is a great place to start.”

      —Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO, Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute and author of The Marketing Performance Blueprint

      “If you wonder where to get started in your company’s AI journey, Seth lays out a playbook for a flexible, scalable, and tool-agnostic approach to AI implementation. The journey is difficult, but the rewards will enable businesses to compete and thrive in our complex and fast-changing technology world.”

      —Ryan Miller, Chief Digital Officer, First Investors Financial Services

      “With every technology that comes knocking on our doorstep, the question we have to ask ourselves is, ‘how will I use this to create value for my customers?’ Businesses have weathered the turbulence of digital transformation and now AI is knocking on our doorstep. For executives, it can feel confusing, intimidating, and at times, downright dangerous. If you’re in that mix, then you must keep Seth Earley’s book close at hand. It delivers a practical approach to explaining AI as well as how to apply it to any organizational environment.”

      —Carla Johnson, international keynote speaker, bestselling author, and CMO

      “For any leader considering ways to improve their business with advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence, this book is a must-read. Seth Earley has documented a recipe for your success.”

      —Mark Loboda, Senior Vice President of Science and Technology, Hemlock Semiconductor

      “Read this book to learn how leaders and companies are using AI with structured data to transform business. Insight from real-world examples, combined with a proven methodology, will arm the reader with the knowledge and confidence necessary to drive AI in any organization.”

      —Barry Coflan, SVP & Chief Technology Officer, Schneider Electric, Digital Energy

      “Success comes to those who plan ahead. And while AI has been in existence for a while, it’s still not working at the level it should be. Why not? Seth’s book provides the answer to that question and a clear path for everyone who want to hang ten the AI wave. Don’t crash & burn, read this book!”

      —Jeffrey Hayzlett, Primetime TV and podcast host, speaker, author and part-time cowboy

      Due to the limitations of ebook formatting technology, some of the tables and graphics in this book may be difficult to read in some ebook reader configurations. To see the full-resolution graphics, go to https://earley.com/book-images.

      Note about the index: Terms are hyperlinked to page numbers per the print book, and may not display correctly due to variations in ebook screen size. For precise reference, please use the search function instead.

       CONTENTS

       Foreword

       Chapter 1: The Promise and the Challenge of AI

       Chapter 2: Building the Ontology

       Chapter 3: Customer Experience: The Front Line of the Battle

       Chapter 4: Marketing: At the Center of the Data Storm

       Chapter 5: Making Ecommerce Smarter

       Chapter 6: Sharpening the Sales Process

       Chapter 7: Customer Service: Delivering Higher Quality at a Lower Cost

       Chapter 8: Accelerating Employee Productivity

       Chapter 9: Physical Meets Digital: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Logistics

       Chapter 10: AI-Powered Strategy and Governance

       Chapter 11: Leading into the Future

       Glossary

       Acknowledgments

       Notes

       Index

       About the Author

       To my wife Lisa, the love of my life, for supporting me throughout this process and for her support over the years of building the business.

       FOREWORD

      When I think of Seth Earley, I think of four things: knowledge exchange “salons” around the firepit at his home, a crazy-fast and small racing-power catamaran on which I risked my safety with him, knowledge management, and conversational artificial intelligence. I won’t elaborate further on the first two, but the last two are highly relevant to this book. Like me, Earley spent a number of years consulting and writing about knowledge management. That topic isn’t terribly popular now, but it has positively informed his approach to AI and this book.

      The book is heavily focused on the importance of ontologies in conversational AI systems, and ontologies were also very important in knowledge management. Of course, the ontology Earley is addressing is not the metaphysical study of the nature