AI SPECIAL..... Notes from the AI frontier: Applications and value of deep learning PART I

Notes from the AI frontier: Applications and value of deep learning PART I

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An analysis of more than 400 use cases across 19 industries and nine business functions highlights the broad use and significant economic potential of advanced AI techniques.

Artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a transformational technology of our digital age—and its practical application throughout the economy is growing apace. For this briefing, Notes from the AI frontier: Insights from hundreds of use cases (PDF–446KB), we mapped both traditional analytics and newer “deep learning” techniques and the problems they can solve to more than 400 specific use cases in companies and organizations. Drawing on McKinsey Global Institute research and the applied experience with AI of McKinsey Analytics, we assess both the practical applications and the economic potential of advanced AI techniques across industries and business functions. Our findings highlight the substantial potential of applying deep learning techniques to use cases across the economy, but we also see some continuing limitations and obstacles—along with future opportunities as the technologies continue their advance. Ultimately, the value of AI is not to be found in the models themselves, but in companies’ abilities to harness them.

It is important to highlight that, even as we see economic potential in the use of AI techniques, the use of data must always take into account concerns including data security, privacy, and potential issues of bias.

1. Mapping AI techniques to problem types

2. Insights from use cases

3. Sizing the potential value of AI

4. The road to impact and value

1.        Mapping AI techniques to problem types

As artificial intelligence technologies advance, so does the definition of which techniques constitute AI. For the purposes of this briefing, we use AI as shorthand for deep learning techniques that use artificial neural networks. We also examined other machine learning techniques and traditional analytics techniques.

Neural networks are a subset of machine learning techniques. Essentially, they are AI systems based on simulating connected “neural units,” loosely modeling the way that neurons interact in the brain. Computational models inspired by neural connections have been studied since the 1940s and have returned to prominence as computer processing power has increased and large training data sets have been used to successfully analyze input data such as images, video, and speech. AI practitioners refer to these techniques as “deep learning,” since neural networks have many (“deep”) layers of simulated interconnected neurons.

We analyzed the applications and value of three neural network techniques:

·         Feed forward neural networks: the simplest type of artificial neural network. In this architecture, information moves in only one direction, forward, from the input layer, through the “hidden” layers, to the output layer. There are no loops in the network. The first single-neuron network was proposed already in 1958 by AI pioneer Frank Rosenblatt. While the idea is not new, advances in computing power, training algorithms, and available data led to higher levels of performance than previously possible.

·         Recurrent neural networks (RNNs): Artificial neural networks whose connections between neurons include loops, well-suited for processing sequences of inputs. In November 2016, Oxford University researchers reported that a system based on recurrent neural networks (and convolutional neural networks) had achieved 95 percent accuracy in reading lips, outperforming experienced human lip readers, who tested at 52 percent accuracy.

·         Convolutional neural networks (CNNs): Artificial neural networks in which the connections between neural layers are inspired by the organization of the animal visual cortex, the portion of the brain that processes images, well suited for perceptual tasks.

For our use cases, we also considered two other techniques—generative adversarial networks (GANs) and reinforcement learning—but did not include them in our potential value assessment of AI, since they remain nascent techniques that are not yet widely applied.

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) use two neural networks contesting one other in a zero-sum game framework (thus “adversarial”). GANs can learn to mimic various distributions of data (for example text, speech, and images) and are therefore valuable in generating test datasets when these are not readily available.

Reinforcement learning is a subfield of machine learning in which systems are trained by receiving virtual “rewards” or “punishments”, essentially learning by trial and error. Google DeepMind has used reinforcement learning to develop systems that can play games, including video games and board games such as Go, better than human champions.

In a business setting, these analytic techniques can be applied to solve real-life problems. The most prevalent problem types are classification, continuous estimation and clustering. A list of problem types and their definitions is available in the sidebar.

2.        Insights from use cases

We collated and analyzed more than 400 use cases across 19 industries and nine business functions. They provided insight into the areas within specific sectors where deep neural networks can potentially create the most value, the incremental lift that these neural networks can generate compared with traditional analytics, and the voracious data requirements—in terms of volume, variety, and velocity—that must be met for this potential to be realized. Our library of use cases, while extensive, is not exhaustive, and may overstate or understate the potential for certain sectors. We will continue refining and adding to it.

Examples of where AI can be used to improve the performance of existing use cases include:

·         Predictive maintenance: the power of machine learning to detect anomalies.

Deep learning’s capacity to analyze very large amounts of high dimensional data can take existing preventive maintenance systems to a new level. Layering in additional data, such as audio and image data, from other sensors—including relatively cheap ones such as microphones and cameras—neural networks can enhance and possibly replace more traditional methods. AI’s ability to predict failures and allow planned interventions can be used to reduce downtime and operating costs while improving production yield. For example, AI can extend the life of a cargo plane beyond what is possible using traditional analytic techniques by combining plane model data, maintenance history, IoT sensor data such as anomaly detection on engine vibration data, and images and video of engine condition.

·         AI-driven logistics optimization can reduce costs through real-time forecasts and behavioral coaching.

 Application of AI techniques such as continuous estimation to logistics can add substantial value across sectors. AI can optimize routing of delivery traffic, thereby improving fuel efficiency and reducing delivery times. One European trucking company has reduced fuel costs by 15 percent, for example, by using sensors that monitor both vehicle performance and driver behavior; drivers receive real-time coaching, including when to speed up or slow down, optimizing fuel consumption and reducing maintenance costs.

·         AI can be a valuable tool for customer service management and personalization challenges.

Improved speech recognition in call center management and call routing as a result of the application of AI techniques allow a more seamless experience for customers—and more efficient processing. The capabilities go beyond words alone. For example, deep learning analysis of audio allows systems to assess a customers’ emotional tone; in the event a customer is responding badly to the system, the call can be rerouted automatically to human operators and managers. In other areas of marketing and sales, AI techniques can also have a significant impact. Combining customer demographic and past transaction data with social media monitoring can help generate individualized product recommendations. “Next product to buy” recommendations that target individual customers—as companies such as Amazon and Netflix have successfully been doing--can lead to a twofold increase in the rate of sales conversions.

Two-thirds of the opportunities to use AI are in improving the performance of existing analytics use cases

In 69 percent of the use cases we studied, deep neural networks can be used to improve performance beyond that provided by other analytic techniques. Cases in which only neural networks can be used, which we refer to here as “greenfield” cases, constituted just 16 percent of the total. For the remaining 15 percent, artificial neural networks provided limited additional performance over other analytics techniques, among other reasons because of data limitations that made these cases unsuitable for deep learning.

Greenfield AI solutions are prevalent in business areas such as customer service management, as well as among some industries where the data are rich and voluminous and at times integrate human reactions. Among industries, we found many greenfield use cases in healthcare, in particular. Some of these cases involve disease diagnosis and improved care, and rely on rich data sets incorporating image and video inputs, including from MRIs.

On average, our use cases suggest that modern deep learning AI techniques have the potential to provide a boost in additional value above and beyond traditional analytics techniques ranging from 30 percent to 128 percent, depending on industry.

Visualizing the potential impact of AI and advanced analytics

Our interactive data visualization shows the potential value created by artificial intelligence and advanced analytics techniques for 19 industries and nine business functions.

In many of our use cases, however, traditional analytics and machine learning techniques continue to underpin a large percentage of the value creation potential in industries including insurance, pharmaceuticals and medical products, and telecommunications, with the potential of AI limited in certain contexts. In part this is due to the way data are used by these industries and to regulatory issues.

Data requirements for deep learning are substantially greater than for other analytics

Making effective use of neural networks in most applications requires large labeled training data sets alongside access to sufficient computing infrastructure. Furthermore, these deep learning techniques are particularly powerful in extracting patterns from complex, multidimensional data types such as images, video, and audio or speech.

Artificial intelligence requires large amounts of quality data. Coursera cofounder Andrew Ng explains how AI companies are acquiring, organizing, and using big data to create value.

Deep-learning methods require thousands of data records for models to become relatively good at classification tasks and, in some cases, millions for them to perform at the level of humans. By one estimate, a supervised deep-learning algorithm will generally achieve acceptable performance with around 5,000 labeled examples per category and will match or exceed human level performance when trained with a data set containing at least 10 million labeled examples. In some cases where advanced analytics is currently used, so much data are available—million or even billions of rows per data set—that AI usage is the most appropriate technique. However, if a threshold of data volume is not reached, AI may not add value to traditional analytics techniques.

These massive data sets can be difficult to obtain or create for many business use cases, and labeling remains a challenge. Most current AI models are trained through “supervised learning”, which requires humans to label and categorize the underlying data. However promising new techniques are emerging to overcome these data bottlenecks, such as reinforcement learning, generative adversarial networks, transfer learning, and “one-shot learning,” which allows a trained AI model to learn about a subject based on a small number of real-world demonstrations or examples—and sometimes just one.

Organizations will have to adopt and implement strategies that enable them to collect and integrate data at scale. Even with large datasets, they will have to guard against “overfitting,” where a model too tightly matches the “noisy” or random features of the training set, resulting in a corresponding lack of accuracy in future performance, and against “underfitting,” where the model fails to capture all of the relevant features. Linking data across customer segments and channels, rather than allowing the data to languish in silos, is especially important to create value.

Realizing AI’s full potential requires a diverse range of data types including images, video, and audio

Neural AI techniques excel at analyzing image, video, and audio data types because of their complex, multidimensional nature, known by practitioners as “high dimensionality.” Neural networks are good at dealing with high dimensionality, as multiple layers in a network can learn to represent the many different features present in the data. Thus, for facial recognition, the first layer in the network could focus on raw pixels, the next on edges and lines, another on generic facial features, and the final layer might identify the face. Unlike previous generations of AI, which often required human expertise to do “feature engineering,” these neural network techniques are often able to learn to represent these features in their simulated neural networks as part of the training process.

Along with issues around the volume and variety of data, velocity is also a requirement: AI techniques require models to be retrained to match potential changing conditions, so the training data must be refreshed frequently. In one-third of the cases, the model needs to be refreshed at least monthly, and almost one in four cases requires a daily refresh; this is especially the case in marketing and sales and in supply chain management and manufacturing.

Continues in PART II