How is artificial intelligence changing business models?
Changing existing business models through AI
The new brutkasten series"No Hype AI" was dedicated to the question of how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing business models. In the panel discussion, Saskya Lipp (CANCOM Austria), Ana Simic (Propeller), Nikolaus Marek (IBM) and Mic Hirschbrich (Apollo.ai) shared their insights on the impact of AI on companies and where the journey is heading.
AI as a driver for increased efficiency and new business models
Saskya Lipp, Portfolio & Product Manager at CANCOM Austria, believes that companies that take the identification of use cases seriously will experience massive change. "You can already see very clearly that the existing business model has been transformed," - says Saskya Lipp. Increased efficiency in production and automation in particular have transformed business models. Personalization in the customer area also plays a major role. New business models are being created primarily through agentic AI. For example, customer support could change significantly thanks to voice-bot-as-a-service or fully automated products, explains Saskya Lipp.
Many companies in Austria are starting to increase efficiency in order to gain initial experience with the technology. But so far, progress has been incremental rather than truly disruptive. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: getting started with AI technology is the first step towards transformative models.
Mic Hirschbrich, co-founder of Apollo.ai, believes that it makes sense in many areas to use the next generation of AI as support, as assistance. Saskya Lipp takes a similar view, as it is clear that AI is increasingly being used in the form of assistance systems, such as chatbots or voice bots in customer service, where AI supports humans. "I also believe that business models will continue to develop in this direction, for example through agentic AI, which makes it possible to fully automate processes or promote new ways of thinking," - says Saskya Lipp.
Which industries benefit most from AI?
Industries with large amounts of data and standardized processes benefit particularly strongly from the AI transformation. This applies to manufacturing, finance, healthcare and logistics. Here, AI can bring about enormous increases in efficiency and create new opportunities for data-driven business models. Above all, however, the participants in the discussion panel agreed that no industry will be spared from AI. The technology makes it possible to develop almost limitless creative solutions. The area of customer care in particular is being completely rethought by AI. Interaction with customers will increasingly shift to the digital space.
Acceptance of AI-supported assistance systems
Modern AI-supported chatbots are fundamentally changing customer service. Acceptance is increasing enormously thanks to natural language models. Nikolaus Marek, Tech Sales Leader at IBM, explains:"With advanced transformer models, chatbots can better understand natural language and process customer requests more efficiently. Interaction with AI follows the principle: show me, tell me, and do it for me." This means that chatbots not only provide information (show me), but also proactively explain action steps (tell me) and ideally execute these processes directly and automatically (do it for me). "This will streamline processes and the market demand for agentic AI will grow strongly - forecasts predict a massive increase in the coming years," emphasizes Nikolaus Marek.
According to the experts, no economic sector will be spared from the AI transformation. The technology not only creates more efficient processes, but also leads to completely new business models. Companies that invest in AI now and develop innovative use cases will remain competitive in the long term and benefit from the digital revolution. Find out more in the new brutkasten video"No Hype AI".