This time last year, generative AI became popular, putting the incredible potential of generative AI in the spotlight. In the months that followed, the potential of AI opened up a new world of efficiency and productivity gains for businesses across all sectors. In fact, 77% of CEOs plan to invest in AI technologies.
AI has demonstrated its potential to accelerate nearly every facet of business, from financial planning and supply chain management to human resources and employee engagement. However, an equally important development we have witnessed is the enormous speed of change.
The result? The old fear of missing out (FOMO). This will make companies want to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing, driven by the desire not to miss out on various AI opportunities it offers and to avoid falling behind their competitors.
But how can businesses get to the forefront of innovation, and how can cloud applications help them on that path?
A little less legacy technology, a lot more cloud
Upgrading an on-premises system can be disruptive and expensive. As a result, many organizations skip software versions and delay updates for years. In this scenario, adopting AI technology becomes a big challenge. By adopting Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, businesses can gain access to continuous innovation with updates delivered every quarter, with minimal disruption.
Vice President of Strategy and Business Services, Oracle EMEA.
Frequent updates allow organizations to quickly adopt new features and help the software vendor refine and improve existing features. For example, when we initially introduced automated invoice matching into Oracle Cloud ERP, it was around 70 percent accurate. After additional upgrades delivered over three to four quarters, capability rapidly improved to an accuracy rate of over 95 percent.
SaaS architecture will be essential for organizations to quickly realize new AI capabilities and for software vendors to refine those capabilities to drive more value.
Integrated AI for a new era
Many organizations don't know where to start with AI and often lack the data science resources to build and maintain custom AI applications.
But leading SaaS providers are taking this burden off their customers by incorporating AI and generative AI into business processes. Built-in features generate relevant text (based on context and cues), provide recommendations, reveal anomalies, and provide richer information. By seamlessly incorporating use-case-specific AI into business processes, customers can take advantage of productivity-enhancing features without investing in technical experts.
A virtuous circle: better data, better AI
As AI continues to evolve to address more complex challenges that cross different lines of business, organizations with numerous different SaaS solutions could find themselves in a cloud hairball. Creating and maintaining integrations between applications adds more cost and complexity and creates additional friction and delays in converting data into insight and action.
To make the most of AI, organizations need to consolidate systems and manage data on a common platform. With an integrated set of applications that uses a shared data model, an update in an HR system (for example, a salary increase) automatically appears in finance through the ERP software, since both applications work with the same data.
Incorporating generative AI will also create an additional flywheel effect on AI functions. Generative AI helps avoid spelling errors and reduce the number of synonyms used to describe the same thing, leading to better quality data. For example, generative AI in HR use cases allows candidates, employees, and managers to use more standardized language in employee performance summaries, job descriptions, and cover letters. This then enhances the AI's ability to identify skills gaps, make hiring and training suggestions, and improve candidate recommendations.
To avoid FOMO, look to the cloud
Unfortunately, most on-premises application environments do not provide this foundation for AI success. To harness the potential of AI to improve productivity, business leaders must ensure their business systems are agile, responsive, and continually improving.
SaaS applications provide organizations with quick access to AI features and capabilities integrated into business workflows that evolve to improve over time. When delivered as part of an integrated suite, with generative AI enhancing classic AI capabilities, the potential for complex use cases that eliminate time-consuming manual processes becomes even greater. In short, SaaS applications provide the foundation businesses need to stay ahead of the new technology curve and will help organizations of all sizes, in all industries, take a quantum leap in productivity.
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