AI has revolutionized business processes – there’s no arguing that. The initial trend by these businesses was to adopt existing, pre-designed AI models for their processes.
But using such off-the-shelf, existing AI solutions, even though they can offer quick benefits, often lack the specificity to address unique challenges that individual businesses face.
Custom AI solutions, on the other hand, come up with solutions tailored specifically to the business needs leading to a higher return on investment (ROI).
What are Custom AI Solutions?
Instead of adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, custom AI solutions are systems designed exclusively for a business's unique operations. Also while training such systems with data, the customized systems consider not generic data, but data relevant to the particular business processes, and context.
Such models are ideally developed in tie-ups with AI experts, data scientists, and domain-specific professionals who have a deep understanding of the industry and the firms’ needs. Such custom AI models can range from a personalized recommendation engine for an e-commerce platform to automated financial decision-making in fintech to a sophisticated AI system for predictive maintenance in manufacturing.
Benefits of Custom AI Solutions
1. Relevance
The primary aim and advantage of custom AI solutions is their ability to be relevant to specific business problems and thus provide accurate insights. Off-the-shelf AI models, on the other hand, may not fully understand the nuances of a particular industry or business as it is designed for a broad audience.
But in a custom AI model, one can train the model on the company’s data and design it with their own unique goals in mind, leading to more relevant insights.
2. Flexible and easy to scale up
Off-the-shelf solutions are often rigid in terms of functionality. This is a huge obstacle if the company is planning to expand into new markets, add additional product lines, or tackle different and new operational challenges.
A custom AI model, on the other hand, is designed from scratch; it can be continuously adapted and scaled to accommodate new challenges, and changes in the domain, and train on new data for new business goals.
3. Air-tight Data Utilization
Almost every factor of performance of an AI model depends on the data it is trained on. Off-the-shelf models are almost always pre-trained on generic datasets, usually not relevant to specific industries. However, custom solutions created from scratch are often trained on a business's proprietary data, allowing them to make better insights and recommendations.
Thus custom AI solutions are a perfect initiative for businesses that already have access to large amounts of data as part of their business processes, like customer behavior, various operational statistics, or market trends.
4. Competitive Edge for the New World
In today’s competition, possessing a custom AI solution can be a game-changer. While off-the-shelf models are available to everyone, custom AI models offer solutions unique to your process and business. The insights thus obtained can provide an edge over competitors who don’t possess powerful custom models.
Such customized AI models have the capability to solve complex industry problems and derive innovative solutions. For instance, a financial firm can develop a custom AI algorithm that detects fraudulent transactions faster than the current industry standard, thus making your process much more reliable than other players, adding a layer of security and boosting reputation among customers.
5. Ownership and Control
Bringing up a customized model gives businesses complete ownership over their processes. With generic AI products, possibilities will be limited by the predesigned functionalities provided by the vendor. However, a custom solution, not only gives complete control but also space for extensive modifications and updates based on progressing requirements.
In such an arrangement, businesses will also have access to the underlying data and algorithms giving control over various decision-making factors. This is particularly necessary for businesses that operate in regulated industries, where it’s crucial to understand how decisions are made in the process.
6. Easily Integrable with Existing Systems
Whether is an existing AI model or a newly designed one, the ability to integrate it with the company’s existing systems and software is a requirement. Using an existing AI solution may present an obstacle in merging with the company’s existing technology stack, leading to complexities and inefficiencies. Custom AI solutions, however, are designed right from ideation to work hand-in-hand with existing infrastructure, ensuring minimal disruptions and seamless integration with existing systems.
For instance, a company that has been using a specific ERP platform should have an AI model that can easily integrate into the current system.
7. Though it may seem to be costly in the beginning, it will prove cost-effective in the long run
It is a fact that designing a custom AI model may require a higher initial investment compared to using existing off-the-shelf products. But in the long run, they will prove to be more cost-effective. Such pre-designed AI tools also have recurring subscription fees and if it fails to merge seamlessly with existing systems, the overhead can be quite high.
On the other hand, custom AI solutions, even though require initial capital, can, once developed, be scaled and fine-tuned without any subscription costs while growing parallel to the changes occurring within the business processes.
Furthermore, the higher relevance of these customized AI models can lead to better business outcomes and a higher return on investment (ROI).
Custom AI vs. Off-the-Shelf AI: Which to Opt for?
While pre-designed AI solutions are easy to set and quick to use, with lower initial costs, there are many limitations that come along with them, which can hinder businesses from fully realizing the potential of AI. Off-the-shelf models are suitable for businesses with general AI needs or requirements. However, the model will seem highly inefficient as the businesses scale and more complex requirements come up.
Custom models, on the other hand, give tailored functionality. By utilizing proprietary data and addressing specific business challenges, the flexibility of the AI model to grow is huge, thus providing businesses with a powerful tool for accuracy and efficiency.
Want to develop a customized, powerful AI model for your business processes? Come brainstorm with us!
Read the second part of the blog giving various instances of how the Custom AI model can intervene in different industries including Retail and e-commerce, healthcare, Logistics, financial services, and many more. Read it here!
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