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From box televisions to the World Wide Web, and brick phones to smartphones, artificial intelligence (AI) has been transforming the way humans process information for decades.
According to Next Move Strategy Consulting, the AI market is forecast to grow twentyfold by 2030, on top of its already huge value of nearly US$100 billion (A$151 billion).
The current AI ecosystem includes machine learning, robotics, and artificial neural networks (ANNs) such as chatbots, image-generating AI, and mobile applications.
The emergence of ChatGPT in 2022 by OpenAI largely propelled AI into the spotlight, awakening the world to the transformative potential of autonomous software.
Major banks like Commonwealth Bank (CBA) were even reaping AI rewards back in 2021, partnering with global AI leader, H20.ai, which specialises in solving complex business problems.
As we enter 2023, businesses are leveraging the new tech to their advantage, increasing data and information-gathering capabilities, creating fewer time constraints, and improving customer experience through the technology.
In an interview with The Market Herald, Pedowitz Group CEO Jeff Pedowitz suggested that although AI has been around for years, the emergence of larger language models has made it much more user-friendly.
“The key thing to make all of this AI generation work is getting the data right because at the end of the day, AI is still software and it can only run on as good as the data that is going into it,” he said.
There are some concerns regarding the use of AI, centred around personal privacy and cybersecurity, as well as job security and compliance with AI regulations.
How investors can use AI to make better decisions
Everything from supply chains to marketing and research & analysis are fields that will, in some aspect, adopt AI in the near future.
Mr Pedowitz estimates that the next generation of AI will surpass existing valuation milestones achieved through the evolution of the World Wide Web.
He has dubbed it a trillion-dollar market for the global economy over the next decade.
“There’s going to be a lot of money pouring in over the next couple of years and honestly no one is going to be able to predict which companies are going to be able to make it and which won’t,” he said.
“The larger the enterprise and the more systems it has, the more siloes of data it holds, but the customer still expects a unified experience.”
AI has proven it can bridge the gaps between data analysis and customer experience by providing executives with the intelligence they need to make smarter business decisions.
A University of Queensland and KPMG global study conducted in February 2023 examined the public’s trust and attitudes towards AI use across 17 countries.
That study found only 40 per cent of Australians actually trust the use of AI at work, including tools like ChatGPT.
However, the study stumbled upon a gap in AI perceptions across age and education within Australia, finding that a staggering 65 per cent of Gen X and Millennials trusted AI at work more than older generation Australians, which sits at 39 per cent.
Mr Pedowitz reiterated that it was simply too soon to know who will fail and who will succeed in the AI world.
“If you’re an investor right now I would be cautious because the future has not yet been written, I think there’s going to be failures just like what we saw with the .com era,” he said.
“On the commerce front, it’s better for the customer as well as for business because AI will do what we have all gotten used to with Amazon and Netflix, where everything is just right there at the click of a button.
“And that’s going to make the user experience much better, and they will probably buy more because of it because everything on the screen will be just what we want.”
However, the CSIRO has previously warned that incorporating the appropriate checks and balances in AI design is paramount in combating unintentional negative impacts on business revenue.
AI job cuts
The job market is one area that is almost certain to be affected by the emergence of generative AI.
Global outplacement business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. released a report on jobs in May, noting a 20 per cent increase in job cuts compared to the month before.
The report outlines that so far this year, companies have announced plans to cut 417,500 jobs, equating to a 315 per cent increase from the 100,694 cuts announced in the same period last year.
The technology sector announced the most cuts in May, with 22,887, for a total of 136,831 this year, up almost 3000 per cent from the 4,503 cuts announced in the same period last year.
Financial firms have endured 36,937 cuts throughout May, up 320 per cent from last year, while healthcare, including health product manufacturers and hospitals, announced 33,085 cuts, up 81 per cent from job cuts in the first five months of last year.
Cybersecurity risks
With scamming more prominent than ever, AI poses significant risks to accessing personal information and data sets.
The Australian Responsible AI Index recently found that despite 82 per cent of businesses believing they were practising AI responsibly, less than 24 per cent had actual measures in place to ensure they were aligned with responsible AI practices.
Leading Australian cybersecurity specialists at CMTG believe they are at the forefront of addressing the emerging cybersecurity challenges posed by the increasing use of AI.
“AI systems are seen as lucrative targets for hackers given the vast amounts of data they generate,” CMTG Founder and Director Carl Filpo said.
“Many AI systems rely on an extensive amount of personal data to make accurate predictions and decisions and if this data is not properly safeguarded it can be exposed or exploited by malicious actors.”
To combat this threat, CMTG suggests that organisations implement strong data protection mechanisms, including data encryption, access controls, and anonymisation techniques to uphold privacy standards while utilising AI technologies.
ASX-listed companies and sectors emerging in the AI space
With almost every sector poised to benefit from the advantages of AI software in the coming years, some ASX-listed financial, technological, mining, and healthcare sectors are so far ahead of the game.
ASX200 biopharmaceutical company, Telix Pharmaceuticals (TLX) is using AI to help physicians maximize insights from imaging data and translate them into better treatment decisions.
TLX Chief Scientist Dr Michael Wheatcroft previously mentioned the company’s use of AI, stating it added a new dimension of support for clinicians and patients by using data generated through medical imaging to facilitate timely and effective clinical decision-making.
“These applications can potentially assist clinicians in predicting disease progression and treatment response, thus supercharging and differentiating Telix’s AI offering,” he said.
Meanwhile, financial services ASX company, Hub24 (HUB), has been delivering market-leading solutions since its debut in 2007.
The HUB24 platform offers advisers and their clients a comprehensive range of investment options using AI, including market-leading managed portfolio solutions and enhanced transaction and reporting functionality.
AI in mining
ASX mining technology company Sensore (S3N) is the only company using AI to make discoveries by combining geological data and mining exploration results to predict where other companies should look for resources.
Sensore is building the world’s largest cache of geoscience data with the aim of becoming the go-to company for data and solutions regarding mineral exploration.
S3N has formed joint ventures ranging from junior explorers throughout Australia and globally to big mining magnets like BHP.
Executive Director and CEO of Sensore Richard Taylor said the explosion of AI developments this decade has surprisingly increased Sensore’s workforce.
“We are far from decreasing, the company has grown with demand from other companies to use our software and services,” he said.
“People are very quick to point out when AI makes a mistake. However, we don’t seem to apply the same criteria when we look at human decision-making.
AI offers a learning system that gets better with more data and aims to assist human exploration improve on these very low success rates, not replace it.”
Lastly, Unith (UNT) is aiming to enhance the customer experience across multiple markets with its unified research and development of facial movement deep learning, audio machine learning, and conversational design (NLP).
The company is generating the first customisable, interactive avatar of its kind for customer service roles, surveys, healthcare, and other customer service content prevalent in today’s communications.
Unith CEO Idan Schmorack said the future of AI was going to change our day-to-day lives by allowing people to become more productive.
“We in our product, enable healthcare providers to take very complicated information they want to carry and carry it with a digital human, something a call centre or a nurse would do before treatment, and use this across several disciplines,” he said.
Key investor takeaways
There is no doubt that AI will create new investment opportunities through increased data loads and fewer time constraints, but investors will need to sift through the competition to make a worthwhile investment.
Investors will need to consider the long-term implications of AI and the associated risks as well as the investment opportunities, and they will need to determine effective ways to predict and invest in responsible AI systems.
