Why SMEs should embrace machine learning

RECENT technological advancements have placed artificial intelligence (AI) along with its subfield of machine learning (ML), at the forefront of transforming small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) digitally. Some SMEs are starting to tap into ML to shape their business processes and decision-making with the ultimate aim of raising profitability through revenue improvement, cost reduction and new sources of value creation. ML is seen as a continuation of the concepts around predictive analytics. However, a key difference in ML is that it uses mathematical algorithms to train computers in the processing and analysing of large amounts of data, allowing them to produce rules, identify patterns and generate classification predictions. It is important to note that computers automatically learn without human intervention or being explicitly programmed.