The next phase of artificial intelligence (AI) will see the emergence of interactive AI, where intelligent assistants will have the ability to interact with humans in a more advanced conversational manner.
This is one of the key findings of the “The state we’re in 2024 Q1: Rethinking resilience” report compiled by research consultancy Flux Trends.
It summarises the most pertinent business and consumer trends of the first quarter of 2024 in SA and across the globe, and future forecasts, gleaned from the Flux team of trend experts.
According to the report, the next wave of AI − interactive AI − will see next-gen AI assistants taking generative AI (GenAI) applications and capabilities to the next level.
While GenAI primarily focuses on generating content using prompts and without direct user interaction, interactive AI is designed for all forms of user engagement and interaction.
Amazon Alexa, for example, is able to respond to simple commands, whereas interactive AI tools will be able to respond in a more human-like way.
Users will be able to give their assistant more complex, time-consuming tasks and it will be able to interact with other humans, websites and chatbots to achieve the goal set by the user, it says.
“The use of interactive AI in business will be similar to the way AI is being used, in customer service, marketing and sales, healthcare and education, only more advanced. Customer service departments will be able to handle enquiries in more robust ways and interactive AI can help with sales, generating leads by providing engaged, personalised conversations with customers,” says the Flux Trends report.
Interactive AI aims to eliminate some of the restrictions of generative AI, by incorporating human input and interaction into the generation process. It has the ability to adapt to the user’s preferences and adapt to user preferences and be intertwined with the user’s creativity.
The Flux Trends report references Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who believes the next generation of AI will see the tech getting better at “thinking” and facilitating human-machine interaction.
“The third wave will be the interactive phase. That’s why I’ve bet for a long time that conversation is the future interface. You know, instead of just clicking on buttons and typing, you’re going to talk to your AI,” said Suleyman, in an interview with MIT Technology Review.
The future of interactive AI holds great promise for revolutionising how humans interact with technology, making it more intuitive, personalised and seamlessly integrated into humans’ daily lives. However, Flux Trends cautions that the technology will also raise important ethical and societal considerations that must be carefully navigated as these technologies continue to evolve.
Companies looking to implement the technology will have to ensure they are keeping abreast of global best practices with regards to AI, and ensure ethical practices in this largely unregulated space, it asserts.
In a LinkedIn blog post, Thomas Kwan, Odysseus Capital Asia MD for corporate finance, explains that interactive AI can take various forms, depending on the level and type of interaction involved.
He lists several examples, such as query-based, dialogue-based, editing-based and co-creation-based interactive AI.
“Interactive AI is a new and exciting direction of AI that promises to revolutionise the way we work and create/consume content. By combining the power of GenAI with the input and interaction of humans, interactive AI should be able to offer more personalised, reliable and creative outputs that can enhance our lives and work,” explains Kwan.
This week, ChatGPT creator OpenAI unveiled its latest AI model, named GPT-4o, which allows users to interact through audio, images and text in real-time. It can also respond to audio inputs similar to human response time in a conversation.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI said GPT-4o is a step towards much more natural human-computer interaction.
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