This article originally appeared in the July/August issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe

New AI tools and solutions are being released into the market every day, and businesses need to have their fingers on the pulse to benefit from this growing technology. The good news is that many businesses are increasingly implementing AI-based tools and solutions into their operations, so this hasn’t gone unnoticed.

In fact, among large enterprises, 50% have implemented AI in at least one function within their business. Plus, by 2026, it is predicted that 80% of businesses will use Generative AI in some form, up from just 10% using AI in 2018.

But, we can’t forget that AI is not a magic bullet; business leaders cannot just blindly implement AI into their operations and expect it will automatically add value and make a meaningful impact. The solution lies in combining human and artificial intelligence to achieve genuine intelligence. In combining the two, AI can then make a meaningful difference.

Why does AI go wrong?

AI, without human input, often goes awry. A study published by IDC found that approximately 70% of business AI projects fail to deliver, often due to a lack of skilled workforce and insufficient understanding of AI tools and solutions.

To combat this, employees must be adequately trained on when and how to use AI platforms, and then given sufficient time to understand how they work to gain the most value from these new systems. This then means that AI can be used in the right place, at the right time.

If we decide to use AI translation as an example, many businesses, particularly within complex industries such as pharmaceutical, could massively benefit from AI to translate large quantities of text, and quickly turn around advisory literature on patient guidance.

However, post-editing by in-the-loop experts is critical in order to ensure that the AI translation output is trustworthy and fit-for-purpose. Especially where there are health implications if the technology gets it wrong.

AI translation is not at a stage yet where it can be 100% accurate; its output will always require human review from qualified subject matter experts. This is because AI translations on their own often fail to capture nuanced language, idiomatic expressions, and cultural contexts, which leads to inaccurate output. In fact, The European Association for Machine Translation found that human translators had to correct errors in about 25-30% of the AI-translated output.

If used wrongly, this could not only slow down outputs but also cause some serious issues as leading companies may then come to believe that AI isn’t providing real value. What’s missing here is the link between humans and AI, causing businesses to believe that AI is the root issue, rather than how it is used.

How can businesses take advantage of AI?

Businesses can start to reap the benefits from AI when they implement solutions built on genuine intelligence. Genuine intelligence is the concept that the best AI outputs occur when there is a synergistic combination of artificial intelligence and human intelligence.

In using genuine intelligence, AI does not need to replace humans, instead it compliments specialised human skills to increase the speed and accuracy of output. This method ensures that AI is continually learning and adapting to the context which it is exposed to, which itself is selected by human specialists.

Such solutions can elevate efficiency, produce accurate content, enhance human productivity, and give employees more opportunities to work on tasks that truly require their attention, ensuring that businesses are truly gaining value from AI. As such, within the context of translation, language specialists are only needed at the most critical points when using solutions that have been adequately implemented and built with genuine intelligence at their core.

There are tools within the market already, such as Evolve, which combine human and artificial intelligence and have greatly decreased the time required to achieve human-quality translations. The difference now will be whether businesses decide to pick them up or leave their AI tools with unrealised potential.

One step closer to the magic bullet of AI

The right AI strategy does exist. It is just a matter of identifying this and implementing it within organisations efficiently and effectively, enhancing the role of the human worker rather than burdening them. Businesses that merely bring in AI tools for the sake of it, without proper training, will not truly reap all the benefits that they can from AI.

Tools developed using genuine intelligence elevates the human worker, through producing accurate content, enhancing productivity, and allowing humans to work on more complex tasks that require a certain human touch. This ensures that businesses can start to gain real value from AI, and see its benefits come to light.