Connect with us

Telecom

Trusted, conversational AI will drive productivity & decision-making – here’s how

Published

on

Kindly share this post

By Zuko Mdwaba, Salesforce Area VP / Africa Executive

Businesses are embracing AI and increasing productivity across every industry, with 45% of executive leaders reporting increased investments in AI. Early enterprise adopters are already seeing the benefits, and freeing up more than 30% of time from every employee so they can be more strategic and creative.

Moving forward, every company will undergo an AI transformation to increase productivity and drive efficiency. As the technology continues to advance, it is becoming easier than ever to apply its insights and tailored content to everyday business decisions. By infusing trusted AI across every job, business, and industry, together we can unlock a more productive, innovative business economy.

Nowhere is the potential for transformation more clear than with conversational AI – assisting users within their flow of work, enabling them to ask questions in natural language, and receive relevant and trustworthy answers that are grounded in secure company data.

The capability to offer options for additional actions beyond the user’s query – such as a recommended action plan after a sales call, or creating a new service knowledge article – is fundamentally reshaping how people build and interact with business applications to achieve higher performance and job satisfaction.

At Dreamforce recently, Salesforce introduced the next generation of Einstein, its AI technology, bringing conversational AI to any workflow, user, department and industry. This includes Einstein Copilot – a trusted out-of-the-box conversational AI assistant, built into the user experience of every Salesforce application.

The great advantage of this technology is that it can be customised and built to the unique specifications of any business, allowing employees to easily integrate it into their day-to-day work.

For marketers, for example, it means benefiting from automatically generated email copy for campaigns, creating smarter campaign segmentation, and creating website landing pages based on personalised consumer browsing and buying preferences.

In commerce, it means taking care of complex and time-consuming tasks like managing multi-product catalogue data, creating product descriptions in multiple languages, personalising product promotions, and generating search engine optimisation (SEO) metadata that drive conversions. Embedding AI assistants into websites will enhance customer interactions by powering real-time chat, or integrating with messaging platforms like WhatsApp, or SMS.

In healthcare, an administrator can automatically reduce patient scheduling no-shows and generate appointment summaries. In financial services, an advisor can analyse client spending and savings history to offer personalised coaching and create tailored plans and goals.

The need for secure AI architecture

Any business’ AI strategy is only as good as its data strategy. Yet today’s customer data has never been more fragmented.

On average, organisations are using 1,061 different applications, yet only 29% of them are currently integrated.

What companies really want is one connected platform or one that will connect all of their data. In this era of AI, organisations need a customer data platform that acts as a single source of truth enabling them to drive business resilience, meaningful customer engagement, and future growth.

With a secure AI architecture, teams can benefit from generative AI without compromising their customer data, while at the same time letting companies use their trusted data to improve generative AI responses.

It’s crucial that AI recommendations are reliable, and that users are enabled to train models on their own data and validate these responses. Every effort to mitigate harmful outputs by conducting bias, explainability, and robustness assessments should always be a priority in AI.

By combining an integrated customer data platform with a conversational AI platform that draws on secure, trusted data, business leaders and their employees can be confident in making better, data-driven decisions.

The era of generative AI is just getting started, but the full potential of this technology’s benefits is yet to be realised. There is so much promise and opportunity for businesses to gain real value and growth, ultimately giving employees and customers a better experience.


Kindly share this post

Ugo Onwuaso is an ICT enthusiast. He believes technology should be used for general good. He holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from the Lagos state University. Dear Reader, Your support matters. But we believe that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. That is why, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and finance and how they affect lives. Our incisive and analytical view of how technology news affects the daily life help individuals and organizations make up their minds. Quality journalism costs money. Today, we're asking that you support us to do more. Kindly support our effort to deliver technology and finance journalism to everyone in the world. Donate as little as N1,000. Bank transfers can be made to: UBA Plc 1017156876 Communication Week Media Ltd

Telecom

Aleph Paves the Way for MSME Success in Nigeria with Launch of Aleph Express

Published

on

Kindly share this post

Aleph Group, Inc, an ecosystem of global digital experts and technology-driven solutions that enables the growth of digital marketing, has announced the launch of Aleph Express, its proprietary solution for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) in Nigeria.

In one simple and intuitive app, Aleph Express provides a platform for MSMEs to create and maintain a free e-commerce website, create a product catalog, set local delivery options, manage, record and process orders while gaining meaningful insights to drive growth.

Most innovatively, Aleph Express provides one unified inbox that integrates Whatsapp, Messenger, and Instagram, to enable businesses to efficiently engage and sell – all in one place.

In addition, Aleph Express provides local payment solutions and support, creating a holistic offer for Nigeria’s thriving MSME sector.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria is home to more than 41 million MSMEs and contributed 49% of the country’s GDP in the last five years. 42% of MSMEs in the country – equivalent to more than 17 million businesses – operate within the wholesale and retail trade industry.

However, 97% of Nigeria’s retail industry is made up of traditional – largely offline – channels. Aleph Express’ solution, which takes all the heavy lifting out of starting and managing an online shop, will offer an opportunity for retailers to evolve traditional retail channels and capture online growth.

The launch of Aleph Express forms a key part of Aleph’s strategy to provide localised and actionable technology for advertisers and MSMEs alike. From its teams on the ground, Aleph offers unrivalled, local support to enable its partners to overcome in-market challenges and create valuable opportunities. Aleph, through its legacy brand Ad Dynamo, has been supporting Nigerian advertisers since 2009.

Matthieu Laporte, Vice President of SMB at Aleph, commented: “Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the Nigerian economy. With Aleph Express, we enable them to create digital storefronts to attract more customers not only in their neighbourhood but across the country and the region.

“Our dedicated local teams support businesses and entrepreneurs new to this form of commerce and aim to onboard 10,000 monthly active merchants by the end of 2023.”

Approximately 90% of MSMEs in Nigeria use social platforms in one way or another to connect to customers, Aleph Express is a one-stop shop to accelerate businesses’ outreach to clients and potential new clients across the country.

Stephen Newton, Managing Director – Sub Saharan Africa at Aleph, added: “The launch of Aleph Express is a premiere – we are proud that Nigeria has been selected by Aleph as the first market to launch.

“This also marks a milestone in our offering, as Aleph Express is specially tailored for small and medium businesses, enabling these entrepreneurs to leverage the power of social platforms for their growth. With our local team standing by and supporting SMBs, I am confident that we are spearheading a revolution in this field.”


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Telecom

Maida Pledges Support Meta on Undersea Cable Initiative

Published

on

Kindly share this post

Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (EVC/CEO) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has said the support of the Commission awaits law-abiding investors like Meta, (formerly Facebook), which responds positively to Nigeria’s desire for investments that promote the agenda of government to achieve a robust digital economy.

Maida, who spoke when he received a delegation of Meta, led by the company’s Vice President for Africa, the Middle-East and Turkey, Kojo Boakye, when they visited NCC’s headquarters in Abuja, said the regulatory support to all investors, including operators in Nigeria, will be predicated on their playing by the rules and regulations guiding the sector.

He said the Commission places a lot of premium on compliance to industry laws, regulations and guidelines as such will also engender a level-playing field for all licensees and other stakeholders in the industry for sustaining a healthy competition and guaranteeing a sustainable growth in the Nigerian telecoms sector.

Boakye informed NCC boss that the purpose of the visit was to congratulate the EVC on his appointment by the President and to intimate him of ongoing efforts to land 2Africa Cable in Nigeria.

At 45,000 kilometres long, Boakye said the 2Africa submarine cable will be one of the world’s largest subsea cable projects and will interconnect Europe (eastward via Egypt), Asia (via Saudi Arabia), and Africa.

He said the system will go live in 2023, delivering more than the total combined capacity of all subsea cables currently serving Africa, with a design capacity of up to 180 terabytes per second (Tbps).

Boakye stated that 2Africa will deliver much-needed Internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa, supplement the fast-growing capacity demand in theMiddle East and underpin further growth of 4G, 5G and fixed  broadband access for billions of people, especially in Nigeria.

He solicited NCC’s support in sailing through all necessary legal and regulatory hurdles in landing the submarine cable to complement existing backbone infrastructure in Nigeria.

He also said Meta, through a consortium, plans to land 2Africa cable simultaneously in Lagos and Akwa-Ibom States “in order to ensure those not yet connected are connected while those already connected are given opportunity for enhanced and affordable access.”


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Telecom

MTN PR Manager Earns a PhD as Pan-Atlantic University Convocates 11 Doctoral Graduates

Published

on

Kindly share this post

Lakinbofa Goodluck, MTN Nigeria’s PR Manager, was one of 11 doctoral graduates at the Pan-Atlantic University’s (PAU) convocation on December 2, 2023.

He was awarded a PhD certificate for his laudable research thesis on Nigeria’s film industry titled ‘Defining the Christian Film in the Nollywood Film Industry’. He sought to understand the meaning-making process between the filmmaker/creative collaborators and the audience through the lens of genre.

Amidst the vibrant event, where attendees adorned varied hoodies and regalia, the university celebrated a total of 206 graduands. These individuals were acknowledged for enduring academic rigour and demonstrating mastery of knowledge and the requisite character to contribute meaningfully to society.

During his address, the Pro-Chancellor of the university and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia SAN, commented on the potential interference of artificial intelligence on learning. He emphasized the importance of experiential learning to foster independent analysis and thought.

“It is only in continuing to challenge students to analyse, evaluate and create that we can maintain the core essence of tertiary education and produce graduates who are equipped to navigate the complexities of the future,” he stated.

PhD is the peak of formal education and only intensely disciplined, determined and curious people dare to attain it.

Reflecting on the significance of achieving a PhD, Lakinbofa shared, “This is not just a personal achievement; it’s a tribute to the relentless pursuit of knowledge and the boundless curiosity that drives me. Exploring the intricacies of Nigeria’s film industry in my thesis was a rewarding journey into the world of genre and audience engagement.

“As one of the 11 Doctoral graduates, I stand amidst a cohort of individuals charged to contribute significantly to society. I acknowledge both the burden and the fulfilment.”

Given the rapid progress of the Nigerian film industry and its substantial contribution to the nation’s economy, Lakinbofa’s study promises to provide stakeholders with invaluable insights.

 

 

 

 


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Trending