The Intelligent Product Vol. 2

Dear fellow Product Managers,

In the past, my students used to come to me with their cutting edge “the AI idea”'s and my response usually was that there is no “the AI idea” but there could be “the viable business idea” that may or may not utilize AI. Today, we see that the world has begun to understand that AI is not a one-of-a-kind or an obtrusive super-intelligence that will overtake humanity, but is another useful tool that simplifies our lives in a modest way, mostly hidden in the everyday products that we love. Especially in these unprecedented days, from face mask detection to face mask quality testing, artificial intelligence is proving its value through unprecedented applications.

In the second volume of The Intelligent Product newsletter, I am bringing to you more AI stories from all around the world about the products we love, the products that make us more efficient and effective. Please enjoy.

Developing these products requires hundreds of business and technology experts and an immense amount of collaboration between those experts. Therefore, I’ve invited four AI product experts from Silicon Valley to share with you their expertise and their journey in the amazing world of AI Product Management. Please join me on August 15th, 2020 at 9:00 AM PST for the “Break Into AI product Management” panel - a treat with the tech industry’s four brilliant business professionals Ali Khodaei, Ashok Ramani, Manjeet Singh and Shyamala Prayaga, who worked at companies such as Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Ford, HP, IBM, LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Yahoo and VoiceBox. Together, we will represent more than 100 years of cumulative experience in tech product development. Please RSVP for this one of a kind online conference available to you for free at https://www.aiproductinstitute.com/event. I look forward to seeing you there.

Please contact us at news@aiproductinstitute.com for any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback.

Be curious, be passionate!

Adnan Boz

AI Product Institute

Volume 2

Automotive

SAS reduces suspicious warranty claims and labor costs for 1200 Honda dealerships by using SAS AI solutions, SAS analytics, and SAS Forecast Server. Read the full story at https://www.sas.com/en_ae/customers/american-honda.html

Our opinion: The worldwide yearly car production is reaching an immense number of 100 million cars. This, in-turn, is fueling the auto service and repair industry - an industry with unprecedented profit margins ranging from 20% to 60%. However, only a few players in the industry such as Honda recognizes the opportunity to utilize the data to improve the bottom line. The reason is that seeing AI optimization opportunities that affect the bottom line requires AI business expertise. This is where AI product managers come into the picture, being able to identify AI opportunities by looking at a process or business is one of the critical AI Product Management skills.

Consumer Products

Reynolds Consumer Products, a well-known household name, simplifies internal processes and enhances analytics with the help of Infosys’ Robotic Process Automation solutions. Read the full story at https://www.infosys.com/services/ai-automation/case-studies/reynolds-consumer-products.html

Our opinion: Renowned organizational theorist and management consultant Dr. Geoffrey A. Moore points out in his book "Zone to Win" that productivity organizations deliver one or more of the following value propositions:

Regulatory compliance
Improved efficiency (“doing the right thing”)
Improved effectiveness (“doing the thing right”)

All three value propositions are product management responsibilities and changing any of these in an established organization requires business expertise. Furthermore, if the change involves AI, such as in robotic process automation, then expertise of an AI product manager is imperative.

Telecom

T-Mobile is building better predictive recommendations for customer service by freeing up their data scientists’ precious time using Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth. Read the full story at https://aws.amazon.com/machine-learning/customers/innovators/t_mobile/

Our opinion: In recent years, data labeling has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry that is growing with a CAGR of 28%. Labeled data is needed for machine learning tasks such as supervised learning and active learning that powers a majority of today's AI applications. From analyzing the need to make “buy vs. build vs. partner” trade-offs, AI product managers play a crucial role in enterprise data strategy. For instance, in an in-house high-volume labeling effort the AI product manager would be responsible for coordinating the work, assuring labeling accuracy, and consistency.

Retail

Microsoft and M&S (Marks and Spencer), one of Britain’s best known and most respected retail brands, are building the future of retail by deeply integrating machine learning, computer vision, and AI across every endpoint – both in its stores and behind the scenes. Read the full story at https://customers.microsoft.com/en-US/story/marks-and-spencer-microsoft

Our opinion: At this scale of an undertaking, AI product managers play a critical role, because from logistics to the retail store the AI innovation has to change many products and business processes. Only an experienced AI Product Manager can identify automation as well as optimization opportunities.

Print

From deciding for print layouts to analyzing press data, Xerox is creating innovative AI solutions for the print industry. Read the full story at https://www.xerox.com/en-us/digital-printing/insights/artificial-intelligence-examples

Our opinion: Most AI opportunities are hidden in micro business processes that are taken for granted in day-to-day business operations. Print layouts efficiency, for example, is not a concern that most people would spend time on, as long as the functionality provides the utility. However, an expert AI product manager can see the optimization opportunity for reducing print waste. This requires not just opportunity assessment skills, but also the know-how to deliver AI products.

Logistics

Daimler Trucks Asia (DTA), a subsidiary within the world’s largest truck manufacturer Daimler AG, expects to save $8 million in warranty costs and even more in recall costs by utilizing Deloitte’s cognitive system in their quality management solution. Read the full story at https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/daimler-truck-manufacturing-case-study.html

Our opinion: Quality management is another business process that has tremendous amounts of untapped data. However, changing quality management requires not just changing the tooling, but also changing part of the business model, and changing the business model in an established organization is like changing the tires of a car while the car is driving on a highway 60 miles per hour. Therefore, for an organization to go through such a transformation, the artificial intelligence capabilities of a few data scientists are not adequate. The organization needs AI product managers or like-minded business-savvy people who can layout transformation strategies.

Service and Repair

Coca-Cola shortens service and repair time of beverage dispensing machines by utilizing IBM Watson Services for Apple Core ML. Read the full story at https://www.ibm.com/watson/stories/coreml/

Our opinion: Enterprise mobile intelligence is a new field that is rapidly growing into an industry that serves a major problem for businesses which extend their operations to remote and rural locations, especially with bad or no data connectivity. However, delivering a reliable and viable AI solution on the field is not an easy undertaking. First, unlike many other AI products and services that benefit from the infrastructure of our modern cities, AI solutions that operate in the field have to be self-sustaining. Second, creating viable AI solutions for remote locations requires visiting these locations to gain a deep understanding of the operations, that is far more complicated than holding local user interviews or analyzing local business processes. Therefore, companies need AI Product Managers, who are business savvy professionals possessing the complete AI solution ecosystem understanding.