More Valley companies are placing artificial intelligence at the core of the products and services they offer, in turn paving the way for big changes in the industries they target, from retail to real estate.
“One of the things that we have been working on with our computer vision technology media is helping retailers with detection of organized retail crime and other nefarious acts — we already deployed over 36 use cases using AI,” said co-founder and CEO Susan Sly of RadiusAI, which was founded in 2017.
The Tempe-based company harnesses the power of AI for the retail industry with several proprietary products including Viztel, ShopAssist and Edge Central. Retail clients in grocery, pharmacy and other industries can integrate these products into their systems to track customer purchases, automatically total items in their cart and even calibrate on-site cameras however the company needs.
In addition, RadiusAI is set to release Viztel Reveal, which can be used with a company’s existing security cameras to detect specific activity in real time and provide data and analytics, such as if an employee is experiencing aggression or needs assistance.
Another AI-driven company that caters to businesses is Scottsdale-based Botco.ai. The company launched in 2020 after being awarded a $150,000 Arizona Innovation Challenge grant through the Arizona Commerce Authority in 2019 when the company was still in beta stage.
Rebecca Clyde — co-founder and CEO of Botco.ai — works mostly with companies in health care and senior living. The company automates conversational interactions between businesses and their customers using AI chat. Clyde explained that a customer’s typical method of communication with a business — such as a phone call, email or contact form — are all slow points of engagement.
“If you are trying to call someone, it's dependent on everybody being available at the exact same time. If you're trying to email, you have to wait for an answer. If you have to visit the establishment physically, you know that there's friction there,” Clyde said. “So, when they [businesses] turn on our messaging channel and support these interactions using AI chat, it essentially turns on their ability to talk to their customers 24/7 without necessarily having to staff somebody 24/7.”
Phoenix-based ClosingCopy, a generative-AI real estate listing platform that launched in April, was designed with the agent in mind.
Co-founder Grant Hushek described ClosingCopy as self-serve, where agents can easily and intuitively use the membership platform to detail the property such as the structure, amenities and neighborhood as well as share the listing on multiple channels including social media, via email and third-party apps such as Airbnb.
The Valley native and Brophy College Preparatory alumnus said that ClosingCop is built on top of ChatGPT using proprietary prompts developed specifically for the real estate industry.
“Essentially what we're building is the real estate version of ChatGPT. It saves the agent a ton of time on the prompt engineering side,” Hushek said. “And also, every time it gets used, it gets better, and that's something that ChatGPT doesn't do. So, we’re really happy about that.”
How AI could augment human work
While these three companies are designing systems that push AI into the real world, the big question being asked about the technology's impact is the potential for job displacement.
The Valley business owners offered a range of thoughts about how their AI-driven platforms could impact the workforce in their targeted industries.
RadiusAI's Sly — who is a finalist in the Female Founders category at the 2023 AZ Inno Fire Awards — said that human in the AI loop is essential, citing ideology from Kremer’s O-ring Theory that humans and machines working together will be more accurate than machines working on their own. She also sees an opportunity for the creation of more accessible jobs where it can enable otherwise disabled workers to be able to perform tasks they previously may not have been able to do.
“I believe there's a bunch of people out there who we have disqualified from working because they're over 65 or they're on the autism spectrum,” Sly said. “So imagine if AI could help them be as fast as a younger person or a person without a learning disability.”
Clyde makes a similar assertion, while recognizing that the introduction of AI might lead to the elimination of jobs that are hard to fill or are not budget-friendly such as 24/7 phone support — where the minute you call, somebody answers.
“We really think of our technology as augmenting,” Clyde said. “You're still going to need to have some people that are available on the phones, but why don't we have the AI chat support, kind of what I call the more routine types of inquiries, to get business done in all of the cases where it has been trained…you can reserve your highly trained, skilled human talent to do higher-level thinking work.”
Hushek admits that agents might question whether the platform would eliminate their role, but said it is meant as a tool to aid in creating listings for properties they want to sell.
“The agent is necessary, will always be necessary. This tool, ClosingCopy, augments and enhances their performance and enhances their time savings by getting that first draft,” Hushek said. “We really want this to be an add-on to the real estate agent experience, not a replacement in any way. I think that's a really important part of the product that we're trying to build. It's an enhancement, not a replacement.”
