More than a third of large companies and organizations will include decision intelligence as part of their strategy and practices by 2023, Gartner predicts.
Business intelligence (BI), a relatively new field in and of itself, is becoming more complex, encompassing more innovative technologies. From there, decision intelligence is born. This branch of BI brings together the latest tools to inform comprehensive strategies and make important decisions.
Sitting at the intersection of data science, business analysis, social science, decision modeling, leadership studies, and other fields, this artificial intelligence-fueled discipline has an enormous amount of power — power that could change the way businesses make decisions.
What Is Decision Intelligence?
Decision intelligence stems from BI. Previously, BI has informed decisions, using tools and technologies to offer insights. But while these analytics are valuable, they fall short when it comes to thinking far into the future, because they rely on past data and put particular emphasis on what happened before.
Decision intelligence bridges that gap, looking forward. Informed by AI and machine learning tools, this discipline assesses how various practices and decisions will impact individual components of an organization, as well as the entire business. This, in turn, allows leaders to act quickly, using real-time information. It also translates complex data into a digestible format.
Decision intelligence works because AI has the power to process information and make predictions more quickly than the human brain can. Also, the tools involved process huge amounts of data in a less subjective way. Still, humans are the ones who act on the insights the machines provide.
Benefits of Decision Intelligence
Businesses Will Use Concrete Data to Make Decisions
Gone are the days when businesses could act on intuition to make decisions. Now, they must be informed by concrete data. Using the discipline of decision intelligence, business leaders act on real information, processed by AI, which is capable of processing this information at lightning speed. The technologies involved make better decisions, uncomplicated by human emotion, leading to valuable predictions and outcomes.
Companies Can Act in Real Time
You may believe your business is making excellent decisions. But are you making them quickly enough? Most importantly—are they as excellent as you see them? Decision intelligence utilizes tools that can process data extremely quickly — far more quickly than humans are capable of doing. They can make these decisions in real time without second-guessing and act immediately on them.
Companies Will Have a Competitive Advantage
Aided by tools capable of making extremely intelligent decisions, companies will gain that competitive edge. Their processes and procedures will be better informed, leading to stronger results. They will also have a better understanding of how their businesses operate, thereby enabling them to address issues and close gaps.
Organizations Are Better Equipped to Meet Customer Needs
The AI algorithms for decision intelligence allow businesses to better understand what consumers want. With the broad array of data at their disposal and equipped with powerful tools, organizations are able to glean insights on customer behaviors and interactions. These insights offer a valuable means of communicating and probing consumer actions to better serve and meet their interests.
There Is Less of a Risk of Making Errors
Decision intelligence tools are less prone to mistakes than human decision-makers are. While not entirely out of the picture, biases don’t have as much influence on the analysis. That’s because AI doesn’t have human emotion interfering with decision-making — it’s devoid of feeling. Moreover, the process relies on real, concrete data — not intuition — to think ahead and predict what will happen as a result of various decisions and behaviors.
Examples of Decision Intelligence in the Real World
Recommendation Engines
Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, and other entertainment and media companies have embraced decision intelligence to understand consumer behaviors and preferences to predict what they will and won’t like.
For example, Netflix takes into account the films and TV shows viewers have watched and enjoyed to determine the shows they are likely to enjoy in the future. This is the most widely known example of what’s known as a recommendation engine, a sophisticated system that numerous businesses are now using to better serve their customers.
Product Conceptualization
Before products even reach the market, businesses must make decisions to determine how they will best be positioned and how they will perform. Decision intelligence allows businesses to conceptualize and market their products from start to finish, throughout their lifecycle. Using predictive analytics, organizations are equipped to anticipate how various features and qualities will perform.
This affects practically every aspect of the product, from design to pricing to demand.
Self-Driving Cars
Autonomous vehicles, better known as self-driving cars, have become more ubiquitous in recent years. Using the Internet of Things, combined with other technologies and tools, these vehicles have the power to move around without human intervention.
Decision intelligence plays an enormous role in these vehicles, too. With predictive analytics, decision intelligence can anticipate vehicle behaviors as well as actions that are seemingly external to the vehicle itself, such as pedestrians crossing the street and other obstacles.
Financial Decisions
Finance and banking deal with sensitive data and decision intelligence allows the field to better evaluate that data and act strategically. From advising clients on how to best invest their money to offering guidance on savings to processing transactions, this discipline offers unprecedented access to strong decision-making that could transform people’s lives as well as the entire financial world.
Decision intelligence has the power to radically transform our technologically informed and engaged society. Already, the AI involved in this discipline is taking business intelligence to new levels, enabling organizations to translate critical data into actionable insights and apply them to real-life contexts.
Combined with human thought processes, decision intelligence is equipped to predict the future like never before, allowing organizations to stay ahead of the curve at every turn and gain value to take their businesses to new heights.
