ben brown

September 20, 2023

Business

AI’s Revolutionary Strides in Custom Software Development

ben brown

September 20, 2023

Business

As custom software developers, design thinking is standard practice when it comes to any project. We put the user first and build the solution around their needs… This is nothing new. What’s new is that design thinking has changed and evolved into “platform thinking.”

Platform thinking is the understanding that modern consumers have evolved from passive observers in the product lifecycle to active contributors in the value creation process. For example:

Uber uses platform thinking to connect drivers with people who need rides. The more drivers and riders who use Uber, the more valuable it becomes, because there are more rides available and more people to connect with.
Instagram connects people who want to share pictures and videos. The more people use Instagram, the more valuable it becomes; there are more photos and videos to see and more people to connect with.

Simple enough? Hope so, because now we’re really going to change pace.

Artificial Intelligence Tools in Software Development

AI can assist people in creating and enhancing things, no matter how skilled they are. This approach to platform thinking will become something every business grasps. It’ll eventually get to the point where all employees are also materializing their ideas quickly.

Bear in mind that 41% of all code on GitHub is AI-generated, and as AI becomes an important part of making software, the teams and skills needed will change. AI is not a replacement, so much as it is an extension of work, which in software development always comes back to the team around platform engineering.

The Impact of AI on Software Development Roles

Businesses must anticipate AI's role in platform engineering as they look ahead. With the evolving approach to development, the following are some jobs that will change.

Interaction design roles will surpass UI design roles in demand. As visual AI progresses, the need for a manual UI layout and structuring of business processes will diminish. Interaction designers will guide AI in crafting user interfaces and user experiences through JavaScript design systems, visual guidelines, and consistent user testing.

Business analysts will be dramatically more important in shaping business strategies. AI will likely take on tasks like writing user stories, defining requirements, and even setting acceptance criteria. Instead of just documenting these criteria, BAs will evaluate the AI-generated concepts and align them with the platform-oriented mindset. AI will become the key driver of business strategies, with analysts guiding it in the right direction.

The role of test architecture will be a highly sought-after and well-paid position. With autonomously generated software, continuous testing will be crucial. As the development cycle shortens, the demand for testing will skyrocket. Simply automating user tests based on acceptance criteria won't work anymore.

Test architects will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining intricate test architectures, conducting end-to-end testing of new features, consistently performing exploratory testing, and executing dynamic regression suites that evolve with time.

Software architects will arguably get the most out of AI under this umbrella. Even though we’re still technically in the early stages of AI integration in software development, we are seeing tons of growth in platform engineering. Businesses are shifting away from single-point SaaS solutions and consolidating their efforts on custom-built and SaaS-enabled platforms like ServiceNow, Salesforce, and Workday.

In addition, software architects are devising governance systems to shape code standards, development processes, and other aspects along those lines. Going forward, they will leverage AI to create, enforce, and evolve these systems autonomously.

Putting It All Together

Custom software development is in an interesting spot because even though the industry itself is changing, it too has the power to influence and change other industries. Every facet of a business's operations spiderwebs with AI integration.

In healthcare, maybe it’s automating diagnosis and treatment recommendations. In finance, there could be new approaches to financial planning. Maybe in manufacturing, it’s personless warehouses. These are the kinds of visions we need to dream up as software developers while the change happens in real-time. Clients are looking for partners in transformation which means as a software development company, AI needs to be a priority internally and externally.

The Takeaway

Integrating AI in your business processes starts by knowing when you’re ready and where it’s needed. With that in mind, we created a free tool to help you determine whether or not your business is ready for AI.

How is your industry changing right now? How do you think it will continue to change in the next 5 years? These are the questions you need to be asking yourself in today’s marketplace because there will be stark differences between the companies who do ask and the ones who don’t.

Written By Ben Brown

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ISU Corp is an award-winning software development company, with over 17 years of experience in multiple industries, providing cost-effective custom software development, technology management, and IT outsourcing.

Our unique owners’ mindset reduces development costs and fast-tracks timelines. We help craft the specifications of your project based on your company's needs, to produce the best ROI. Find out why startups, all the way to Fortune 500 companies like General Electric, Heinz, and many others have trusted us with their projects. Contact us here.

ben brown

September 15, 2023

Business

How AI Chatbots Have Recovered in eCommerce

ben brown

September 15, 2023

Business

9 months ago marked one of the biggest transitions in the way humans communicate that will become an irreversible change shortly in every industry. E-commerce is no exception, and the implications of Chat GPT and tools alike pose massive advantages for businesses that can leverage AI effectively.

Like anything new, there has to be the trial and error stage where businesses figure out how the tool fits into their processes. The first issue that immediately stands out with Chatbots is the generic and repetitive responses. If your site implements a Chatbot to manage customer support, how are you going to want the experience to be? For most business owners, the answer is a simple “Unlike anything they’ve ever seen before” which is great but we should also add “And can’t get anywhere else”.

What Happened With Chatbots in eCommerce at The Start (The Epic Fail)

In the early days of eCommerce Chatbots, rather than expediting processes, they ended up causing delays. Chatbots would struggle to locate information, resulting in sluggish responses that left customers feeling more frustrated than if they had waited for a human representative to assist them.

Even when Chatbots managed to provide fast responses, they frequently failed to address the specific questions customers posed. For instance, if a customer inquired about the precise location of their package, the chatbot might respond with a generic message like "Your package is in transit".

In their initial stages, Chatbots were limited in their ability to handle anything beyond basic requests. While they could handle queries like "How do I start a return?" they were incapable of handling more complex requests like "I'd like to check the status of an ongoing return."

The biggest downfall of these early-day Chatbots was their struggles to retain previously gathered information. If a customer was transferred to a human representative, that representative often had none of the information the chatbot had already collected.

Even today, Chatbots are not universally trusted. Under the Bot Disclosure Act implemented in California in July 2019, retailers are required to inform consumers when Chatbots are in use, with non-compliance resulting in fines of up to $2,500 per violation.

What’s Changed?

We can’t come off talking about this Chatbot dystopia without telling you about the strides the technology has made in recent years. So with that said, here’s a look at what’s been going on:

From a technological perspective, this is what’s gotten better:

Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP lets Chatbots understand and interpret human language, which makes interactions feel more natural and meaningful.
Machine Learning (ML): ML algorithms let Chatbots remember and learn from past interactions, which over time makes them more efficient. This is essential for personalization and handling any issues brought to light by customers.
Chatbot Architectures: The design and development of Chatbots have evolved to include components like user interfaces, NLP engines, and ML algorithms, which make the Chatbots more powerful and enhance their responsiveness.
Rule-Based vs. AI-Based Chatbots: Rule-based Chatbots use predefined rules to respond to queries, and AI-based Chatbots leverage NLP and ML to understand and respond to user queries. Match those up against each other, and AI Chatbots are the clear winner.
Best Practices: Developers now follow best practices in chatbot design, focusing on clear purposes, and the user experience, and prioritizing ongoing testing and refinement.

With this part covered, let’s shift to what these technological advancements have translated into:

Human-Like Chatbots: Chatbots have become more human-like, thanks to the advancements in Natural Language Processing and machine learning algorithms. This makes interactions with Chatbots more relatable and user-friendly. Recall that in the past, Chatbots often provided generic and robotic responses.
Deep Customer Insights: Modern Chatbots are designed to use deep customer insights to inform their responses. This is a fancy way of saying; they can analyze user data and give those personalized/relevant responses that companies want their users to have.
Voice Bots: Voice bots (Siri, Alexa, etc.) have obviously become a massive deal since they also give a more natural and intuitive interface for users. Think about booking appointments, ordering food, or making reservations using voice commands. This was a massive improvement over text-only Chatbots.
Improved Customer Satisfaction: Chatbots are now designed to create a sense of connection between the customer and the company instead of simply being a means to automate support services. They provide quick, personalized experiences that improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. In the past, as we know, Chatbots often left customers feeling disconnected and dissatisfied.

What a Successful Chatbot Implementation Looks Like

A few good examples of companies leveraging Chatbots effectively include Rawbank, Starbucks, and Lyft. To break down what each of these companies is doing as straightforwardly as possible, we’ll say that effective Chatbots can be recognized under three pillars:

How it understands language
How it personalizes the experience
How it continues to get better

With Rawbank for example, it has over 50 different use cases which is what makes it so well regarded. With this amount of ground covered, it’d mean that there isn’t a whole lot users could throw at the system that it wouldn’t be able to handle. This brings me to the next point; how it personalizes.

We’ll use Starbucks for this one just because it’s super simple. The chatbot can access a customer's order history, it lets them customize things, it gives recommendations, and it’s a barista in your pocket. This is a system that’s going to set the standard for any local coffee shops now and guess what? The companies who leverage it better than others, will get more customers and retain them longer.

Lastly, Lyft. They recognize that their market is heavily controlled by Uber - which puts a lot of pressure on them when it comes to the customer experience. At first glance, you can see that the Chatbot interface for Lyft closely resembles an iMessage chat which is certainly user-friendly, but how does it stand out? Well, Lyft beat Uber to market. Which has given them time to get some mileage on their Chatbot and optimize the user experience.

The Takeaway

It’s no surprise that a lot of people’s knowledge and understanding of AI stops at Chat GPT. These Chatbot interfaces are setting a new standard for how people find and interact with information, which is now pouring over into the business world. Want to get behind the shift? Find out if your business is ready for AI today.

Written By Ben Brown

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ben brown

September 12, 2023

Business

Biggest Challenges for CTOs in 2023

ben brown

September 12, 2023

Business

Digital transformation has reached a pace that’s increasingly made the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) position more significant. I mean, if you consider the prevalence of technology in business today, it makes sense that those responsible for overseeing all technology-related matters within the company would carry a burden.

Nonetheless, the contribution of CTOs and technology managers is indispensable in enhancing a company's competitiveness through innovation and optimizing workflows. The question is; What daily obstacles do these new technology experts currently confront, and what hurdles lie ahead in the months to come?

The effects of the pandemic have acted as a catalyst for digital transformation. Companies that once viewed the adoption of new technologies as a novelty found themselves abruptly transitioning their operations into the digital realm. Now, as the journey of digital transformation advances, CTOs encounter a set of new challenges in 2023. Here are the top 5 obstacles they are currently navigating:

Big Data

As businesses continue to digitize their operations, the volume of data they generate daily grows exponentially. Handling this data influx is a significant challenge, demanding a meticulously crafted strategy and a specialized infrastructure. The primary goal of initiatives in this realm is to ensure the efficient and secure internal movement and curation of data.

Managing the Big Data landscape efficiently poses big advantages for the company, whether that’s through reduced operational expenses or more streamlined processes. Naturally, this is another facet that falls under the purview of the Chief Technology Officer, working in collaboration with the IT department.

Ongoing Advancement of IT Infrastructure

Closely intertwined with most of the challenges we’re looking at is the perpetual evolution of the IT infrastructure itself, a huge responsibility of CTOs. To ensure the organization's sustained growth, you have to establish a comprehensive strategy for expanding the infrastructure well in advance, thus laying the groundwork for what’s to come, both in terms of cost and operational efficiency. Equally important is preparing the team for what’s to come, fostering an awareness that continual adjustments and enhancements are on the horizon, all implemented for the collective benefit of the organization (It’s a mistake more common than you’d think).

The Digital Transformation Blueprint

For CTOs, particularly when they're new to an organization, a key challenge is formulating a digital transformation strategy. In the daily tasks of technology managers, this process of devising and subsequently executing the strategy takes center stage. What we looked at with the pandemic shifting workflows online, is something today that’s multiplied and is now a factor that everybody in a company needs to be trained on. So how does a CTO navigate this?

Well, they’ll need to conduct a thorough analysis, set goals for the team, formulate a strategy, and then create a process that can be broken down into elements, which only then can be rolled out into the organization. Simple, not easy. As much as the CTO needs to have a clear vision behind the initiatives, they more importantly need to ensure the team is aligned with that vision, and that the benefits encapsulate the whole company.

Identifying Marketable Talent

By 2031, the IT labour market in the United States alone is expecting to add more than 680,000 new jobs. The IT industry has always found it difficult to find talent that’s keeping up with trends and that can quickly be brought on to the team. To be clear it's not merely about filling job openings; it's about sourcing talent capable of adapting and excelling in a rapidly changing environment. Because of this, CTOs have to be proactive and implement measures to attract and retain marketable talent.

For a CTO, this can be difficult to balance with everything in the industry they need to keep up with and the trends they need to stay on top of.

Safeguarding Data and Systems

Ensuring the security of IT systems and data stands is one of the most formidable challenges facing organizations worldwide. Cyberattacks happen about once every 40 seconds nowadays, companies today are in a perpetual battle against potential data breaches, which are exacerbated by the escalating activities and ingenuity of hackers and cybercriminals. “Human error” tends to compound these threats.

How Can CTOs Get The Most Out of Their Team in 2023?

The answer to this question starts with a simple note: Be a leader. CTOs play a pivotal role in spearheading initiatives that drive innovation. Whether it’s leading the creation of new products and services, or internal architectures to optimize output, the team's alignment starts with you. Especially when it comes to AI, CTOs are at the forefront of ensuring successful adoption within their company, which ultimately dictates their longevity.

Beyond technological advancements, CTOs are supposed to be building a strong employer brand by encouraging engagement within the tech community, sponsoring events, and promoting engineering thought leadership, thereby attracting and retaining top talent in this competitive tech landscape.

The Takeaway

We know that leadership is hard without the right support, especially with the demands of the tech landscape today. We work with companies that have in-house teams and those who need external expertise if they’re looking to scale their business dramatically within less than a year. Talk to us today to find out what we can do for you!

Written By Ben Brown

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