18/07/2024
There is an old Japanese proverb saying “To be fast means to be slow but with no pauses”. It is exactly the principle on which the machine customers work. Machine customers, also known as custobots, are virtual customers, in fact, programs designed by companies and equipped with the power to sell and buy things automatically, thus saving the production time. According to a Gartner research panel composed of executives, by 2030, machines could handle 25% of all market transactions, while 49% of CEOs anticipate that AI-driven customer bases will become a major trend by the same year.
What can (and will) machine customer do?
If the program detects that there is a shortage of some necessary part or raw material to continue the production process, or that the raw materials, materials and parts will soon disappear, it makes the order itself, without waiting for people to notice it.
By eliminating the potential for delays caused by human error or oversight, machine customers are saving valuable time in the production process. This innovative approach aligns perfectly with the principles of Kaizen, where small improvements lead to significant cumulative savings and increased profits.
By eliminating the potential for delays caused by human error or oversight, machine customers are saving valuable time in the production process. This innovative approach aligns perfectly with the principles of Kaizen, where small improvements lead to significant cumulative savings and increased profits.
Industry analysts and forecasters are hailing this invention as a game-changer with the potential to reshape the landscape of commerce in the coming years. Gartner has even gone as far as to dub machine customers as "the biggest new growth opportunity of the decade." With such high praise and promising outlook, it's clear that this technology is set to make a lasting impact on businesses worldwide.
And not only that. On the side of machine customers, we save time and money, but on the side of sellers, we have an incredible opportunity for sellers to position themselves on the market as those that machine customers will recognise and - choose, and buy from them. From a seller’s perspective, the rise of these digital entities offers a unique advantage: the chance to stand out and be chosen in a highly competitive environment. As machine customers—empowered by artificial intelligence and integrated into the Internet of Things (IoT)—navigate through bids and offers with remarkable efficiency, they evaluate parameters such as price, delivery speed, quality, and accuracy with unparalleled precision.
These machine customers, driven by sophisticated algorithms, possess the ability to swiftly discern the most favourable options while effectively bypassing traditional marketing strategies and see through the potential lies. Their decision-making processes are guided by pre-set criteria, allowing them to cut through promotional noise and zero in on the most optimal service providers.
The current market, valued at a staggering one trillion dollars, is increasingly influenced by these machine consumers – and you should make sure they choose you!
The current market, valued at a staggering one trillion dollars, is increasingly influenced by these machine consumers. As these digital buyers continue to operate with the sophistication and discernment of human customers, the stakes for sellers are higher than ever. Embracing this shift and leveraging it to one's advantage could unlock substantial business potential in this burgeoning landscape.
What is the specific usage of machine customers?
The machine customers could take over many purchases, especially in these areas which are highly automatised: ordering printer ink when the low ink is detected. Similarly, electric vehicles are harnessing advanced sensors to detect impending fuel shortages, enabling them to autonomously navigate to the nearest charging station. In the event of a flat tire, these vehicles can even schedule a repair appointment with a nearby tyre shop without manual intervention.
Moreover, any vehicle malfunctions can trigger automatic repair scheduling at the nearest—or most cost-effective—auto repair shop, further streamlining maintenance and minimising downtime. This integration of AI and IoT technologies exemplifies a significant leap forward in automating everyday tasks, providing users with unprecedented levels of convenience and operational efficiency.
According to a Gartner research panel composed of executives, by 2030, machines could handle 25% of all market transactions, especially in these areas which are highly automatised
And this is just the Phase 1 where machine customers buy specific things according to how they are programmed. They are “executive machines”.
How fast will machine customers spread?
Additionally, 22% of the CEOs foresee that machine customers will start making a substantial impact on their industries as early as 2025. This early acknowledgment highlights the urgency for businesses to adapt and prepare for the imminent integration of AI-driven purchasing behaviors.
According to the survey, Statista says, 49 percent of CEOs anticipate that AI-driven customer bases will become a major trend by 2030.
Phase 2, which is expected to arrive in 2026, implies that the machine customer will be able to choose between several competing products on the market, in an autonomous way. The decision will be "shared" between the person who programmed the machine customer, and the machine itself. By 2028, Gartner predicts, this behavior of machine customers to "see through the curtain" will cause 20% of the websites that are functioning today to be completely abandoned and obsolete.
By 2028, Gartner predicts, this behavior of machine customers to "see through the curtain" will cause 20% of the websites that are functioning today to be completely abandoned and obsolete.
Phase 3, predicted to arrive around 2036, will see machine customers become fully autonomous customers. Here it will be possible to program contexts, preferences or rules, so that, for example, if printer ink runs out, the printer will not automatically order the printer’s original ink, which is more expensive and takes longer to arrive, but cheaper of similar quality from the store in the next street we already do business with, and similar.
Why should you adopt the digital customers concept?
Machine customers will become as ubiquitous in the near future as there are now algorithms on sales sites that, after searching and shopping, offer you products that they think you will like and can buy, or music website algorithms. Therefore, the products that any company produces must in the future be tailored not only to human customers, but also to machine customers.
The companies who miss the introduction of machine customers in their purchasing divisions will be stuck in production pauses, while those who sell will be rendered obsolete if they fail to be “like” i.e. recognised and chosen by machine customers
Companies will create programs that will act as machine customers for purchase, while those they sell will create their offer so that the machine customers "like" it and choose them. The companies who miss the first part will be stuck in production pauses, while those who sell will be rendered obsolete if they fail to be “like” i.e. recognised and chosen by machine customers.
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23/06/2024
We can say that the “digital twins” are actually a product of the space age and a futurist concept, since it was first successfully introduced by NASA to create simulations or “duplicates” of the real-world spacecrafts and capsules, so the testing would be done on twins, not on real-life objects. A digital twin of a physical object, process or service from the real world is a digital recreation or simulation – to the minutest detail. It is a digital, virtual replica – it could range from simple things like mobile phone to e-vehicles, all the way to the whole (smart) cities with all possible infrastructure needed for its functioning. These digital reproductions can serve for monitoring the real world counterparts, repairing the errors and malfunctions, or they can serve as a field of experimentation – we can simulate the changes to improve the “real life twins” and see the results in the virtual world.
Who have adopted digital twins already?
Just like AI which was a niche idea several years ago, until it was everywhere, the digital twin concept was at first highly specific in use, and in 2023 and 2024 it became widespread. In 2023, according to the data from Statista, 15% of the real estate companies around the globe used digital twins of the houses and buildings. Gartner estimates that by 2027, over 40% of large companies worldwide will be using digital-twin concepts in their projects to increase revenue.
McKinsey’s data claim that the product development leaders need digital twins as a tool to speed up the process of product development, reducing costs and eliminate errors, in order to enhance the results and profits and improve outcomes. Their forecast is that the investment in the concept of digital twins will rise by a whopping 60% annually, reaching $73.5 billion by 2027. It means that the digital twins are a new “goldmine”, if you ask the product developers and company thinkers.
The forecast of product developer leaders is that the investment in the concept of digital twins will rise by a whopping 60% annually, reaching $73.5 billion by 2027.
There is a lot of disparities in the digital twin adoption since the more advanced industries like energy, infrastructure, logistic etc. have a higher adoption rate – the McKinsey’s data show that almost 75% of these companies have already adopted the concept, at least at medium levels of complexity. It is especially so in defence industries, automotive and spacecraft industries, who are at the helm of the adoption process. They tend to expand the use of the concept at the levels of higher complexity, while the energy companies, logistic companies and those dealing with infrastructure tend to develop and use their first digital-twin concepts and use the lower levels of complexity. But soon they will follow the footsteps of the most advanced industries.
Impressive 75% of the advanced industries have already adopted at least medium-level digital-twin concepts while the most popular and omnipresent industries like energy, infrastructure, logistic etc. are currently adopting their first digital-twin concepts at low complexity levels
When should you adopt the digital-twin concept?
Most companies tend to launch new products to keep their competitiveness and keep up with the competition. Yet estimation from McKinsey says that $30 trillion of revenue in the next 5 years are going to be attributed to the products that do not exist yet. And the digital-twin concept is a risk-free tool to make all the necessary changes before the product is launched, thus sparing millions that could be lost because of the product’s potential shortcomings.
It is the crucial future tool for R&D sectors in companies that will allow them to test all the possible options they could imagine before they make an actual physical prototype. The concept also enables the R&D teams to test the developing product in extreme or unusual circumstances.
The R&D teams can make all the necessary changes to the product before the actual physical prototype is produced
In fact, the impact in R&D is so huge that the time spent for development of a prototype is shortened any way from 20% to 50% and the number of actual physical prototypes is cut from 3 or 2 to just one before the mass production starts.
It can also enable real-time and long-distance virtual repairs to some product or services, and it can increase the revenue from the product developed by digital-twin concept by 3-5% while it can go as high as 5-10% if the product has some value-added features.
The revenues from product developed by implementation of a digital-twin concept can reach from 3% to 10%, depending from the degree of value-added features embedded
It is the thing of future, but it has already arrived. It can give you a competitive advantage and cut the R&D costs and time and give you an opportunity to offer a better suited product that the customers will love.
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30/05/2024
During the last year and a half, the AI has become a hot topic – the investors have sensed the potential for a new surge in profits and have invested 2 trillion US dollars in the market value of the top 5 big tech companies during just the past year - which theoretically would mean that projected earnings should be around $300-400bn annually. However, the most optimistic projection shows that Microsoft will only earn $10b from AI this year, claims The Economist. Even with a growth rate of 20% per year, it is believed that the true market effects of investing in AI will only be seen by 2032. However, we have some ideas on where AI could already be used profitably.
Paradoxically, AI is not being adopted fast enough - even though the frenzy around the potential use of AI has quickly engulfed the media and business circles, only 5% of companies have used AI in the past two weeks, and it is predicted that in six months, only 7% of companies will be using AI in any serious sense, says America’s Census Bureau. On the other hand, 75% of companies already use some form of AI, including Google Translate or similar Google tools.
All this raises questions - was the AI craze premature, and how can it be leveraged - now, until the full market and economic materialization of the tools is achieved?
CV cross-analysis
AI mainly serves to speed up some boring and laborious tasks, which, due to their complexity and number of facts, exceed either the power of man or his concentration. One such example that we have encountered and successfully dealt with is the analysis of the skills of candidates and employees through various CVs.
CVs are generally motley in form even when they are in a database that aggregates all CVs. If the company considers that it needs an employee with a certain skill or a certain set of skills, it is necessary to analyse all CVs that have been uploaded to the database by cross-analysis, regardless of whether they are in PDF or Word format - and here the traditional programmes proved ineffective, because it was necessary for all CVs to be uniform in order for the program to recognise and compare employee skills.
The AI-supported programme solves this problem because the program that uses it already at the start uses the "human" feature to ignore document formats and positions of individual categories, but intuitively understands them like a human brain, and compares them quickly like a computer programme. Thus, a manager looking for a candidate in the database can very quickly find a potentially suitable candidate in any part of the world.
User Manual Sublimation and Large Documents Analysis in Highly Regulated Environment
Also, another use of AI-supported programmes is the sublimation of all user instructions, again in a "human intuitive way" - generating a human-understandable "narrative" from a multitude of user instructions that are often very difficult to navigate, voluminous or diverse.
Highly regulated industries have product release processes that include an approval process that varies by project size and the department involved. Each project and/or department within the organisation establishes its own document approbation and distribution processes.
In, the pharmaceutical industry, for instance, during the production process, an extremely large number of reports are generated on the condition of the output products, which must be analysed in real time, and this is a problem known as Large Document Analysis.
Organisations requiring large-scale document analytics can leverage AI-powered solutions to automate approval notifications and create cloud storage processes that automatically distribute newly approved corrections and reminders. They can also streamline approval processes in terms of how they handle disapprovals and resubmissions, and surface only corrections that have not yet been approved for subsequent review.
Where do we go next?
For the AI market, it is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.46% from 2024 to 2030, says Hostinger. Markets and Markets claim this figure to be even higher – 35.7% in the same period.
Yet, in spite of all this potential, the specific usage lags the high hopes. If we concentrate on the realm of the possible right now, we can solve many time-consuming problems right now. And accelerate the profit rate.
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16/04/2024
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging 3D online virtual shops enjoyed skyrocketing growth, evidencing a significant change in customer behaviour. This paved the way for new, revolutionary solutions, mimicking the “wild dreams” of famous sci-fi writers. The early adopters have already positioned themselves at the helm of the online retail business, generating new profit, urging the others to follow suit and add 3D online virtual shops to their offer.
3D virtual online shops blend elements of e-commerce, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), thus creating an immersive shopping environment that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. It's like stepping into a game where the objective is to shop in the most interactive and engaging way possible.
And what about the facts and figures?
Data from Invesprco show that 95% of shoppers choose things visually. The problem with static 2D imagery is that it severely lacks the whole vision experience and interactivity. A lack of confidence in the product shakes the purchase decision. 3D virtual shops often mend this. Shopify confirms that the conversion rate increases by 40% with 3D visualisations, thus enhancing brand loyalty. Vividworks mentioned on average, retailers using 3D content on Shopify witnessed a 94% increase in conversion rates.
Also, a study from 2021 found that 40% of online shoppers are willing to pay more for a 3D experience. This indicates the possibility of expanding the average order size and value if the customer uses 3D. The returns, due to a product’s inadequacy in size, design, etc., are sharply reduced (by an estimated figure of 32%) if a shop uses a 3D version, and interestingly, alleviating returns has proven to be one of the most frequent reasons for financial losses retailers.
A study from 2021 found that 40% of online shoppers are willing to pay more for a 3D experience, indicating the possibility of expanding the average order size and value if the customer uses 3D.
By 2023, the global market for E-commerce with integrated 3D configurations had reached $11.47 billion, up from $3.65 billion in 2020. It will be an even hotter topic and growing trend in 2024, and it is expected to grow 20% per year in forthcoming years.
Looking closely, we can see that people are immersed in 3D shopping since 3D shops have 300% higher user engagement—people like to play, and businesses must leverage this to their advantage.
People immersed in 3D shopping since 3D shops have 300% higher user engagement.
How did we get to the 3D virtual shops, and more importantly, why?
Several factors have contributed to this change: putting the pandemic aside, the ascendance of Generation Z with their “virtual preferences” from solitary environments, the overall dominance of “m-everything” (mobile banking, mobile shopping) and the dissatisfaction with the lack of dimensionality and tactility have all paved the road to 3D virtual stores, which are a step beyond the old experiences of online shopping. They transform the usual interaction between consumers and products, profoundly changing the purchasing decision process. Personal customisation was an old option in the physical shop but is a new must for online stores, and successful companies have taken this to heart.
New generations of users changed their “virtual preferences”, dissatisfied with the lack of dimensionality and interactivity, paving the road for the adoption of 3D shops.
To be successful in the future, brands will have to provide an immersive virtual environment and experience. This experience can refer to the opportunity for customers to see the product in 3D, in all its volume, instead of just an unsatisfactory “flattened” 2D image. The capability of rotating the product image through 360 degrees along one, two or even three axes and using virtual and augmented realities to create even more immersive experience, like virtual showrooms with free customer movement (browsing virtual shelves), virtual trying of items on themselves (like trying clothes on their avatar), virtual interior design is critical. 3D virtual online shops are the “wedding of the best of both worlds” – the digital and the physical. Of course, it all ends with an easy purchase in a couple of clicks if the items are satisfyingly good. This speeds up the process and enhances the money flow and annual revenue for brands and businesses.
The capability of rotating the product image through 360 degrees along one, two or even three axes and using virtual and augmented realities created an immersive experience.
Present and future markets
The potential for greater market penetration and customisation is immense since the shopping zeitgeist of today is characterised by individuality; everyone wants their personalised, tailor-made experience, almost like in the days of actual tailor-made products in traditional shops. It’s clear that people miss that experience and quality of products, so the future demand for 3D e-commerce platforms is here to stay and continues to gain traction. Companies know that software solutions can be expensive. Still, the potential of lucrative markets forces them to differentiate themselves from the competition and find their niche by investing heavily in 3D virtual shops. Time and cost, large file sizes, and user education are the “challenge sides” of this business area.
The shopping zeitgeist of today is characterised by individuality; everyone wants their personalised, tailor-made experience.
Finally, this phenomenon is global. Everyone owns a mobile phone, and a great majority own computers, so the 3D virtual e-commerce movement is global, from Australia and the Pacific to North America, South America to Africa. As expected, early adopters are in North America, with this continent holding a 45% market share. Asia-Pacific closely follows the United States with the highest growth rate: Asia is expected to outgrow the United States in the next few years, while Europe is firmly holding ground in the middle with a more conservative approach.
The early adopters were in North America, and Asia-Pacific closely follows with the highest growth rate.
So, what to do? And when to do it?
Therefore, consumer spending in 3D virtual-enabled e-commerce is not just here to stay— it is here to touch the sky. The best time to act was yesterday. However, today is the second-best time to act and switch to 3D online shops.
Ready to take the next step?
Let's explore how our expertise can help you innovate and implement your vision in a digital world.
Contact us at sanja.gildi@icodefactory.com to discuss your unique needs.
