Data Analytics for You and Me

 

Photo by Lukas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-chart-and-bar-graph-669612/

Data they said was the oil of the 21^st century. Having access to the right kind of data and the ability to process it gave individuals, businesses, organisations and indeed nations power. That is why the demand for data experts or data scientists as the more qualified ones are called grew exponentially. In a scenario where strength and power were derived from being able to source and leverage high-quality data, the common people felt a loss of control and a feeling of being left in the dark with regard to where the world had reached and their ability to cope with it.

This lack of democratisation on the part of the data revolution caused widespread anxiety among the generations that were born and raised before the digital revolution. There was no attempt to demystify data analytics and explain to whoever wanted to know, how they too could use it to make the way that they worked or took the important decisions in life much more informed and efficient.

Understanding Data Analytics

Data analytics essentially involves going through raw data to arrive at certain conclusions, based on the information available to you. This is done with the help of varied techniques and processes that eventually help you enhance productivity.

To do this, you need to first obtain the data required and then segment it in a manner that you are able to zero in on identifiable patterns and trends, empowering you to make more informed decisions leading to better outcomes.  Much like in mining where you process the raw ore to obtain nuggets of the substance you need, data analytics helps you obtain valuable and useful information from within a very large amount of data comprising raw information as well as glimpses of potentially game-changing insights.

Data Analytics Made Accessible

 

Till very recently you needed highly trained data professionals to do the data processing as well as the extraction of relevant information that could be put to use by businesses and large organisations to enhance their efficiency and productivity. This meant that small businesses and organisations as well as individuals, who could not afford to hire the services of such professionals were deprived of the advantages of leveraging data analytics to achieve higher levels of efficiency and output at work.

But that was in the past and advances in technology have made it possible for anybody to reap he tremendous benefits of basic data analytics, thanks to the emergence of many user-friendly tools. This means that there are no longer any entry barriers to making data analytics available to whoever wants to use it.

Besides, there are a whole host of educational resources available online which can help you apprise yourself with the basic data analytics skills required to enhance the productivity and efficiency of what you are doing.  Among the uses that you can put data analytics to is to get a better handle on your customers' preferences, tracking your personal finances or even improving your health. Data analytics can help you make better informed and more -likely- to succeed decisions in a highly complex and competitive world. It can help you make smart decisions in a world where being able to leverage data defines how successful you will be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Digital Entertainment Attracts the Biggest Ad-Spends

Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash

 

In a country where the median age group is 28.8 years[1], it is not surprising that most people turn to digital entertainment rather than traditional forms like television and movies. The widespread availability of mobile devices makes it easy, convenient, and inexpensive to access a myriad of OTT channels, social media networks, online gaming platforms, and music streaming services.

Businesses, marketers and brand managers know that digital ad spending gets them the biggest bang for the buck and, therefore, have begun to spend more on that segment than traditional ones. This is especially true of digital entertainment that corners more than half of India’s ad spend. In fact, according to estimates made by industry, digital advertising could exceed a figure of Rs.70,000 crores ($8.4 billion) by 2026.[2]

 

The Rise and Rise of Digital Entertainment

There are several compelling reasons for this to have happened. The humongous smartphone penetration and the massive internet connectivity available in terms of sheer number of people with that kind of access make digital advertising the obvious first choice for brand managers across industries. With 85.5% of Indian households possessing at least one smartphone and 86.3% households boasting on-premise internet access, it is a no-brainer that most people have extensive access to digital entertainment.[3]

India’s youth-driven demographics comprising millennials, Gen Zers and digital natives are highly engaged with the large number of digital entertainment platforms and channels they have round-the-clock access to. That is in a sense a captive audience or almost low-hanging fruit for most marketers and brand managers.

Social Media platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads, YouTube[4] and so on are an integral part of people’s daily lives in India making them very amenable as platforms for digital advertising. With the average Indian spending more than two and a half hours a day on accessing social media channels, advertisers know that they have a good thing going by placing their ads there.

Besides digital advertising achieves greater penetration in smaller cities and towns across India, what with the growing popularity of vernacular entertainment content. This helps marketers and advertisers create very successful localised digital ad campaigns.

 

Add to that the fact that digital advertising not only returns better ROI on every rupee spent, but can also be monitored closely allowing modification and course correction based on performance and you can see why it is going to grow exponentially in the coming year and beyond.

Going forward one can look forward to a bonanza for both Indian entertainment content creators and the digital advertising industry, given the sheer size of the expected ad spend. Good times are certainly here for these two industries and will only get better as the digitisation bandwagon continues to roll on.

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/india-population/

[2] https://www.cnbctv18.com/entertainment/digital-entertainment-now-drives-over-half-of-indias-ad-spend-ib-secretary-19628370.htm

[3] https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2132330

[4] https://www.google.com/search?q=average+time+spent+by+indians+on+social+media&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN1066IN1066&oq=Average+amount+of+time+spent+by+Indians+on+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgBEAAYFhgeMgYIABBFGDkyCAgBEAAYFhgeMg0IAhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgcIBhAAGO8FMgcIBxAAGO8FMgcICBAAGO8FMgoICRAAGIAEGKIE0gEJMjM3ODRqMGo0qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Why Advertisers Ride Piggy Back on Television Entertainment Channels

 

Photo by Huỳnh Đạt: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-crt-tv-2251206/

For all the growth seen by the online media, television continues to hold sway among the masses, especially when it comes to providing them with pure and unbridled entertainment. From sitcoms and family dramas to reality TV, music and, of course, movies, the television entertainment channels offer advertisers a captive audience of millions who watch their favourite content to unwind and relax their minds. This makes them much more conducive to engaging with the advertising in question than they normally would.

This is not lost on advertisers who happily leverage the daily viewing experience of their target audience to strategically woo them with advertisements that cleverly plug their products and services to a highly receptive group of people. With as many as 210 million households watching TV in India amounting to 892 million viewers television advertising in India packs quite a punch.[1] Though the overall share of television advertising has seen quite a fall against the backdrop of rapidly rising digital advertising, General Entertainment Channels led the television ad spend, cornering 41% of the total. This was followed by sports and movie channels, indicating that entertainment was the king of ad spending on television in India.[2]

The reasons behind the popularity of entertainment channels are many ranging from great audience reach¸ superior credibility, more focused targeting and better brand recall. Given that one of the major reasons behind the soaring popularity of digital platforms with regard to advertising is their ability to provide instant gratification and round-the-clock sensory stimulation to their target audience, one can view the popularity of television entertainment channels in a similar light.

Marketers and brand managers know this and are, therefore, quite happy to make entertainment channels a part of their advertising budgets. It is no coincidence that they often use the services of new age stars from the worlds of sports and cinema boasting a huge online following in the TV commercials they make to plug their wares.  For all the advantages of new age digital advertising, television still retains its relevance in the Indian market as an advertising medium of consequence.

For those writing the obituary of television as a viable communication medium in the digital age have been premature to do so. The medium is adapting and finding newer ways to stay relevant. With AI making rapid strides and already possessing the capability of creating world-class television commercials at a fraction of the current costs, who knows how that will impact the performance of television advertising in the times ahead? Television is far from a spent force and may soon see a resurrection yet.

 

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[1] https://www.barcindia.co.in/whitepaper/barc-india-tv-universe-estimates-2020.pdf

[2] https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/research/digital-dominates-e-commerce-ad-spend-in-2024-with-63-per-cent-share-report/120201062#:~:text=Amazon%20Online%20India%20was%20the%20top%20advertiser,radio%2C%20and%2023%20per%20cent%20in%20digital.&text=General%20Entertainment%20Channels%20(GECs)%20attracted%20the%20largest,cent%2C%20followed%20by%20Sports%20and%20Movie%20channels.

Artificial General Intelligence- Is it the way forward?

 

Graphic created by Google's Gemini AI

For all its capabilities, AI in its traditional form has a restricting sense about it. It can be very fairly accomplished in terms of its abilities but is far from able to replicate the full spectrum of what human ability can achieve. Whatever you achieve using the current AI model in terms of efficiency and output, it willy-nilly requires some form or level of human oversight at some level. All of this may change with the advancements made by what is known as Artificial General Intelligence.

Traditional AI vs. Artificial General Intelligence

While traditional AI is known to be super-efficient when carrying out well-defined tasks like translating languages, Artificial General Intelligence or AGI can comprehend, master and apply knowledge spanning a wide spectrum of tasks like what human beings do. This takes AI much closer to replicating human behaviour in all its dimensions, including the emotional one. It is not, therefore, surprising that all the tech majors of consequence including Google, OpenAI and Meta are very gung ho about AGI. As a matter of fact, there seems to be a race on amongst them about who will be able to announce the successful launch of this "paradigm redefining" technology.

Is AGI around the corner?

For Artificial General Intelligence to have truly arrived, it should have passed the Turing Test, which denotes that one cannot tell the difference between AI’s abilities and those of a human being. As far as researchers and academics are concerned, this Rubicon will not be crossed in a hurry taking anything from a few decades to even a few centuries.[1] For many, the prospect of a delayed advent is a welcome development given the potential of a technology that performs in a manner that is in every way equal to what a human performs, potentially devastating the prospects of gainful employment. They point out the fact that AI with its presently limited abilities is already leading to significant loss of employment and how much more destabilizing would a much more evolved form of AI be for human employment.

Why is AGI so impressive?

 

AGI is expected to cause a seminal change in virtually every aspect of human existence. The fact that this technology possesses human-like cognitive abilities makes its applicable in a universal manner, which is far from the case as of now. With capabilities like these, it can be expected that AGI would be able to provide solutions to intractable human problems like climate change and economic inequalities apart from finding cures for serious human illnesses.

Furthermore, AGI could carry out cutting-edge research and come up with new discoveries and technologies in the realms of medicine, space exploration, energy and so on. These would be breathtaking in the scope of their application, forever altering the human condition for the better.

AGI would lead to humongous gains in efficiency and productivity across industries requiring both repetitive and cognitive work freeing up humans to focus entirely on creative and strategic work. From perfectly managed factories to impeccable public services people would have it very good indeed in their day to day lives.

Viewing AGI as a collaborator

 

Ultimately technology has to be in the service of humans and not the other way round. To that extent, AGI has a future as a collaborator that works for human betterment and does not seek to supplant them. It can help augment human endeavour by enhancing the latter's intelligence and ability to be creative. With its unique ability to offer real-time insights and out-of-the-box ideas, as well as helping humans to process and comprehend complex information in a very efficient manner AGI can help humans make stupendous achievements. This outstanding synergy between humans and machines can usher in a brave new world that we cannot even begin to visualise in the present times.

 

 

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[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/ https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-artificial-general-intelligence-agimckinsey-explainers/what-is-artificial-general-intelligence-agi

Is AI overhyped?

Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/robot-pointing-on-a-wall-8386440/

 

There are those who love AI for its potential to transform the way work gets done efficiently and those who fear it on account of people losing their jobs because of its adoption across businesses and organizations. While the former set of people can't wait for the world to make unimagined progress owing to the magic that large-scale adoption of AI will create, the latter set of people see the rapid adoption of AI as an unmitigated disaster and calamity that will make human beings unemployable and largely redundant.

So, what is the truth? Is AI like any other revolutionary technology that initially threatens mankind and ultimately proves its immense usefulness and gets integrated into everyone's daily lives? Or is it likely to see mankind's takeover by intelligent machines that think autonomously and increasingly independently of human control?

The truth as is usually the case lies somewhere in between and is much more nuanced than simply being a question of whether AI is good or bad for mankind. Look around you and you will notice that in practical terms AI has had little or no impact on their daily lives, even in terms of their daily lives. You hear about AI taking over people's jobs all the time, but have you personally been threatened in that way, or do you know of someone who has?

Even those using AI productivity tools for work, do not really save all that much time, as one would imagine, given the hoopla surrounding AI. One of the most conspicuous AI tools that we are all familiar with is the Chatbot. Does anyone like interacting with one or feel that one's issues are being effectively redressed by them? What about the companies that use them? Do they really see superior service or an enhanced ROI on account of their deployment?

Undoubtedly, there has been massive investment in AI on the part of the leading tech companies of the world who are betting big on its future success. This also compels them to sell the tremendous virtues of AI to their clients and customers, even though it is far from clear how things will pan out in the time ahead. Businesses, organizations and indeed governments around the world have been caught up in this frenzy, promoting AI like there's no tomorrow. This does not seem to be a well-thought-out and calibrated strategy at all.

For all the investments that businesses around the world have made in AI, hoping to benefit from its enormous potential, there is little to show for it in terms of economic success.

According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu, a lot of companies simply overinvest in Generative AI, only to regret it later, which is hardly the hallmark of a great economic impact going forward.[1] Given the hype surrounding AI, one would imagine that its transformative powers would stun all. But does it really? I find the invention of motorized transportation, aeroplanes and mobile phones far more revolutionary and transformative in a very apparent manner than all the song and dance they make about AI. What does it really achieve in practical terms? AI is fantastic at receiving inputs and eagerly coming out with results leveraging language models but you need more than that in the real world whose need for nuance and context might forever be beyond the pale of AI.

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2024/08/06/g-s1-15245/10-reasons-why-ai-may-be-overrated-artificial-intelligence

The Coming Together of IoT and AI

Photo by MART PRODUCTION: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-shot-of-a-person-using-a-smartwatch-8032913/

 

IoT or the Internet of Things has been in the news for quite some time now, even as AI or Artificial Intelligence has, of late taken the world by storm. The coming together or convergence of these two technologies promises to usher in a new technological era dominated by what is known as AIoT or Artificial Intelligence of Things. The two technologies can act in synergistic ways to usher in never-before efficiencies to industries, businesses and individuals.

While IoT comprises a wide array of connected devices obtaining real time data from the world around us via home sensors or even industrial machinery and equipment, AI on the other hand functions as the brain, making sense of the vast amounts of data collected to come up with definite patterns and insights that help one make much more informed decisions.

This symbiotic relationship between the two technologies helps transform data into a means of actionable intelligence. Not only can devices sense their environment, but they can also learn and adapt in a manner that gives them the power to operate autonomously- a paradigm redefining development for both industries and individuals.

How does it help?

The coming together of IoT and AI promises to transform how industries,  and organisations as well as individuals conduct their daily affairs. Take the manufacturing industry, as an example. AIoT can greatly enhance predictive maintenance, minimising downtime by unerringly zeroing in on potential failures, well in advance of their occurrence.

Likewise, this combined technology can help the healthcare industry in several ways. For instance, wearable IoT devices can be a great help in the 24x7 monitoring of a patient's viral parameters owing to their enhanced ability to use algorithms to analyse the data collected, facilitating timely detection of any health issues. This helps healthcare organisations provide proactive as well as personalised care that hugely improves healthcare outcomes

There are several other ways in which the convergence of IoT and AI benefits everybody. Smart cities can, for example, implement intelligent traffic management, allowing for optimal energy consumption and an improvement in public safety by way of real-time data analysis and automated responses.

In essence, the convergence of IoT and AI results in four principal benefits:

·         Enhanced Efficiency

·     Lower Costs

·     Predictive Analysts

·     Personalisation

The Way Ahead

 

The coming together of IoT and AI has opened the doors to a large number of possibilities for businesses, organisations and individuals to incrementally enhance efficiencies in everyday life and achieve outcomes that were earlier thought impossible. The use of Edge AI empowers edge devices like sensors, cameras and other embedded systems allowing for data processing as well as decision-making to happen in proximity to the source, thereby helping reduce latency as well as bandwidth consumption.

AIoT can help implement biometric authentication by analysing biometric data in the shape of fingerprints, voice patterns as well as facial recognition.  This greatly enhances authentication methods and procedures, thereby considerably improving conventional forms of authentication that are quite prone to security breaches and lapses.

From smart car parking and super efficiently performing machinery and equipment to cutting-edge healthcare tools that help us stay healthy, AIoT can help us benefit from a whole slew of innovative and out-of-the-box applications that will reshape how we leverage technology in our daily lives.

 

 

 

 

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Can you use AI to promote your personal brand?

 

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/bionic-hand-and-human-hand-finger-pointing-6153354/

The deployment of AI is becoming increasingly common amongst businesses, industries, organisations and professions across the world. It helps usher in unprecedented levels of efficiency, even as it brings the costs down. Its increased adoption in the times ahead is a no-brainer and a foregone conclusion. Where does it, however,  leave people like solopreneurs, small-time entrepreneurs, and professionals who earn a living based solely on their skill, experience, and intellect when it comes to not just surviving but also thriving in a highly competitive market?

Can they too leverage AI to their advantage in any way? One of the ways that readily comes to mind is trying to use AI to promote their personal brand.  Your personal brand is all about you and the best way to propagate it is to share what you stand for with the people you aspire to connect with. You could at the same time do with a dose of efficiency when it comes to reaching out effectively and efficiently to as many people as you can.

This is where AI can step up to the plate and help you by acting as your virtual assistant, with regard to popularizing your personal brand. Here’s how it can help if you take the trouble to train the AI tools you use with the right inputs-

Helping in creating as well as curating content

AI tools can be a great help in providing you with ideas for creating blog posts, social media updates, videos and podcasts that are perfectly aligned with your target audience’s interests and requirements. They can also be quite handy in helping you actually draft content ranging from social media posts, complete with captions to full articles. An AI tool is also quite good at repurposing any piece of content into several different types of formats like newsletters, social media snippets or even video scripts. These days you can also use AI tools to come up with striking images or short video clips to make your point to your target audience.

Helping with audience research and targeting

AI tools are super efficient at target audience profiling allowing you to obtain a fairly accurate assessment of your ideal clientele. Furthermore, these will also provide you with a fairly accurate idea of what their issues and concerns are.  Besides, you will obtain a pretty accurate idea of how you can access them online.

They will also help you come up with a personalized messaging strategy derived from audience insights, which will resonate quite effectively with your target audience, helping your brand make a lasting impact on them.

Helping with social media outreach

AI tools can make social media outreach fast and efficient for individuals seeking to leverage that medium to grow their personal brand. These tools can help you determine the ideal time for posting on the relevant social media platforms, greatly increasing their efficiency. Besides these can help you assess how the engagement is going for your brand and help you get a handle on the right keywords to use and the trending topics you could touch upon in your posts to make them more effective.

These can also allow you to engage with your target audience in a timely manner leading to more meaningful conversations. You can likely also use chatbots to respond automatically to certain sets of queries and questions.

Helping automate your emailing

Emailing continues to remain one of the most effective outreach methods for businesses, organisations, individuals and working professionals, even in the age of social media.  AI tools can help individuals achieve super-efficient methods of outreach by automating the whole emailing process from A to Z. These help to not only segment the mailing list as per pre decided parameters but also help craft personalized email text that is more likely to elicit a response. Apart from that these help automate the email sequence in a manner that helps you both nurture prospects and onboard new clients.

This is the best possible time ever for empowered individuals to build and enhance their personal brand in a manner that was earlier reserved for mega-corporations. AI tools have made it possible for individuals to profess and advocate their personal brand in a highly efficient and impactful manner, enabling them to massively expand their outreach to their precise target audience resulting in them far surpassing whatever goals they hope to achieve.

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