Latest news with #AI-infused
Techday NZ
4 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Why your export business should adopt AI-infused tax tech in FY2026
Smart sellers are embracing the disruptive power of AI and it's time you did too. Does your export business rely on legacy tax compliance software to support its overseas operations? If you answered in the affirmative, you're far from alone. In 2025, far too many Australian exporters continue to use manual and semi-manual processes in the back office and it's to their detriment, slowing them down, holding them back and exposing them to unnecessary and entirely avoidable risk. Smart operators, on the other hand, are embracing AI-infused compliance solutions with gusto – and getting a head start in experiencing the operational benefits of next generation tech. If you're wondering whether it's worth joining their ranks in the upcoming financial year, here are a couple of reasons why embracing this transformational technology makes a stack of sense for Aussie exporters of all stripes and sizes. HS code hassles sorted in seconds In use in more than 200 countries, Harmonised System (HS) codes enable international trade to be conducted efficiently at scale. While they make it easy for Customs services to determine what tariffs they should be levying on imports and exports, choosing the right ones to use isn't always a simple matter for exporters operating in manual mode. Coffee, for example, doesn't have a single code; it has three, depending on whether the beans in question are roasted, unroasted or decaffeinated. It's also extremely easy to make mechanical errors that result in major mess-ups in the clearing house. The HS codes for diamonds and mushrooms differ by only a single digit but the products themselves are taxed very differently in most countries. Incorrectly applied codes can result in shipments being rejected, confiscated or held up and fines being levied on the offending sellers. Exporters that have embraced and deployed AI-infused tax compliance technology from a vendor that's invested in keeping its platform ahead of the tech curve don't have to contend with these issues. Add it to your fintech stack and you too will be able to assign the right HS codes to your products, every single time. And quickly too. AI allows product catalogues comprising thousands of lines to be coded within 24 to 48 hours, rather than the weeks and months it would take to accomplish the same task manually. Tariffs and taxes determined in a trice It's a similar story when it comes to keeping on top of – and correctly calculating! – the taxes and tariffs that need to be added to goods and services before they're sold and shipped abroad. Doing so manually can be a time-consuming exercise at the best of times and a downright risky one in the unpredictable trading environment that's emerged since US President Donald Trump took office earlier this year. Getting your numbers wrong can see your parcels stuck in transit, your customers stiffed with unexpected charges and your business hit with fines from tax authorities that have zero tolerance for overseas sellers that aren't playing by their rules. And not to mention the reputational hit your brand can take in the ecommerce marketplace inextricably tied to social media platforms. Deploy AI infused compliance technology and these risks get relegated to the "done" box. That's because the right software provider can simplify and streamline the essential, mission-critical tasks associated with the tax compliance process – in addition to code and tax classification, think registration, licensing, calculation, document management, reporting and e-invoicing – for more than 100 countries around the globe. Once it's live in your back office, among other compliance tasks, your team will be able to calculate a wide range of indirect taxes in real time, including US import duties and the differing array of sales taxes and charges levied (in over 13,000 taxing jurisdictions!) by that nation's 50 states. Staying in step with the State Need more evidence that AI technology makes sense for your business? You may choose to consider the fact that governments and customs authorities around the world are themselves using AI to efficiently and effortlessly determine whether the exporters and importers they engage with are doing things properly. Equip yourself with the same tools and technologies they're using on docks and in customs clearing houses, and you'll stand a better chance of dispatching and delivering your overseas sales with zero hold-ups or hassles, secure in the knowledge you've done everything right. Strengthening your export operations in FY2026 If you're already selling your goods and services offshore, you'll likely need little convincing of the benefits: increased sales, a bigger footprint and the security that greater diversification can deliver. Optimising your operations with AI infused tax compliance technology can enhance these benefits and underpin your ongoing overseas success. If profitable growth is a priority for your business in the next 12 months, it's an investment that will pay for itself many times over.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Will AI take your job? The answer could hinge on the 4 S's of the technology's advantages over humans
If you've worried that AI might take your job, deprive you of your livelihood, or maybe even replace your role in society, it probably feels good to see the latest AI tools fail spectacularly. If AI recommends glue as a pizza topping, then you're safe for another day. But the fact remains that AI already has definite advantages over even the most skilled humans, and knowing where these advantages arise — and where they don't — will be key to adapting to the AI-infused workforce. AI will often not be as effective as a human doing the same job. It won't always know more or be more accurate. And it definitely won't always be fairer or more reliable. But it may still be used whenever it has an advantage over humans in one of four dimensions: speed, scale, scope and sophistication. Understanding these dimensions is the key to understanding AI-human replacement. First, speed. There are tasks that humans are perfectly good at but are not nearly as fast as AI. One example is restoring or upscaling images: taking pixelated, noisy or blurry images and making a crisper and higher-resolution version. Humans are good at this; given the right digital tools and enough time, they can fill in fine details. But they are too slow to efficiently process large images or videos. AI models can do the job blazingly fast, a capability with important industrial applications. AI-based software is used to enhance satellite and remote sensing data, to compress video files, to make video games run better with cheaper hardware and less energy, to help robots make the right movements, and to model turbulence to help build better internal combustion engines. Real-time performance matters in these cases, and the speed of AI is necessary to enable them. The second dimension of AI's advantage over humans is scale. AI will increasingly be used in tasks that humans can do well in one place at a time, but that AI can do in millions of places simultaneously. A familiar example is ad targeting and personalization. Human marketers can collect data and predict what types of people will respond to certain advertisements. This capability is important commercially; advertising is a trillion-dollar market globally. AI models can do this for every single product, TV show, website and internet user. This is how the modern ad-tech industry works. Real-time bidding markets price the display ads that appear alongside the websites you visit, and advertisers use AI models to decide when they want to pay that price – thousands of times per second. Next, scope. AI can be advantageous when it does more things than any one person could, even when a human might do better at any one of those tasks. Generative AI systems such as ChatGPT can engage in conversation on any topic, write an essay espousing any position, create poetry in any style and language, write computer code in any programming language, and more. These models may not be superior to skilled humans at any one of these things, but no single human could outperform top-tier generative models across them all. It's the combination of these competencies that generates value. Employers often struggle to find people with talents in disciplines such as software development and data science who also have strong prior knowledge of the employer's domain. Organizations are likely to continue to rely on human specialists to write the best code and the best persuasive text, but they will increasingly be satisfied with AI when they just need a passable version of either. Finally, sophistication. AIs can consider more factors in their decisions than humans can, and this can endow them with superhuman performance on specialized tasks. Computers have long been used to keep track of a multiplicity of factors that compound and interact in ways more complex than a human could trace. The 1990s chess-playing computer systems such as Deep Blue succeeded by thinking a dozen or more moves ahead. Modern AI systems use a radically different approach: Deep learning systems built from many-layered neural networks take account of complex interactions – often many billions – among many factors. Neural networks now power the best chess-playing models and most other AI systems. Chess is not the only domain where eschewing conventional rules and formal logic in favor of highly sophisticated and inscrutable systems has generated progress. The stunning advance of AlphaFold2, the AI model of structural biology whose creators Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were recognized with the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024, is another example. This breakthrough replaced traditional physics-based systems for predicting how sequences of amino acids would fold into three-dimensional shapes with a 93 million-parameter model, even though it doesn't account for physical laws. That lack of real-world grounding is not desirable: No one likes the enigmatic nature of these AI systems, and scientists are eager to understand better how they work. But the sophistication of AI is providing value to scientists, and its use across scientific fields has grown exponentially in recent years. Those are the four dimensions where AI can excel over humans. Accuracy still matters. You wouldn't want to use an AI that makes graphics look glitchy or targets ads randomly – yet accuracy isn't the differentiator. The AI doesn't need superhuman accuracy. It's enough for AI to be merely good and fast, or adequate and scalable. Increasing scope often comes with an accuracy penalty, because AI can generalize poorly to truly novel tasks. The 4 S's are sometimes at odds. With a given amount of computing power, you generally have to trade off scale for sophistication. Even more interestingly, when an AI takes over a human task, the task can change. Sometimes the AI is just doing things differently. Other times, AI starts doing different things. These changes bring new opportunities and new risks. For example, high-frequency trading isn't just computers trading stocks faster; it's a fundamentally different kind of trading that enables entirely new strategies, tactics and associated risks. Likewise, AI has developed more sophisticated strategies for the games of chess and Go. And the scale of AI chatbots has changed the nature of propaganda by allowing artificial voices to overwhelm human speech. It is this 'phase shift,' when changes in degree may transform into changes in kind, where AI's impacts to society are likely to be most keenly felt. All of this points to the places that AI can have a positive impact. When a system has a bottleneck related to speed, scale, scope or sophistication, or when one of these factors poses a real barrier to being able to accomplish a goal, it makes sense to think about how AI could help. Equally, when speed, scale, scope and sophistication are not primary barriers, it makes less sense to use AI. This is why AI auto-suggest features for short communications such as text messages can feel so annoying. They offer little speed advantage and no benefit from sophistication, while sacrificing the sincerity of human communication. Many deployments of customer service chatbots also fail this test, which may explain their unpopularity. Companies invest in them because of their scalability, and yet the bots often become a barrier to support rather than a speedy or sophisticated problem solver. Keep this in mind when you encounter a new application for AI or consider AI as a replacement for or an augmentation to a human process. Looking for bottlenecks in speed, scale, scope and sophistication provides a framework for understanding where AI provides value, and equally where the unique capabilities of the human species give us an enduring advantage. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Bruce Schneier, Harvard Kennedy School and Nathan Sanders, Harvard University Read more: How will AI affect workers? Tech waves of the past show how unpredictable the path can be Does your service business need AI? Here are 4 rules to help you decide ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and the collapse of the creative process The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
More than 2 years after ChatGPT, newsrooms still struggle with AI's shortcomings
An inaccurate AI-produced reading list recently published by two newspapers demonstrates just how easy it still is for publishers to circulate AI slop. The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer last week published a summer reading insert produced by King Features, a Hearst Newspapers subsidiary that provides the pair with licensed content. While the insert included real authors, the recommended books were mostly fake. Ultimately, 404 Media found that a human writer had produced the list using ChatGPT and failed to fact-check it. 'I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first,' the insert's writer told 404 Media. 'This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses.' OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT more than two years ago kicked off an AI gold rush, resulting in a deluge of AI-infused tools aiming to help people find information online without sifting through lists of links. But that convenience comes at a cost, with AI chatbots continuing to offer incorrect or speculative responses. Newsrooms have adopted AI chatbots with some trepidation, aware that the technology opens up new opportunities, as well as potential high-profile blunders — all amid fears that AI could lead to job losses and eat into news outlets' revenue sources. Not adopting the technology, however, means risking being left behind as others use AI to comb through enormous datasets, incubate ideas and help readers navigate complicated narratives. Though many major newsrooms have adopted AI guidelines since ChatGPT's launch, the sheer size of some newsrooms' staff, coupled with multiple external partnerships, complicates identifying where embarrassing AI blunders can occur. The insert incident exemplifies the myriad ways AI errors can be introduced into news products. Most supplements that the Sun-Times has run this year — from puzzles to how-to guides — have been from Hearst, Tracy Brown, the chief partnerships officer for Sun-Times parent Chicago Public Media, told CNN. However, whether it's an insert or a full-length story, Brown stressed that newsrooms have to use AI carefully. 'It's not that we're saying that you can't use any AI,' she said. 'You have to use it responsibly and you have to do it in a way that keeps your editorial standards and integrity intact.' It's precisely because AI is prone to errors that newsrooms must maintain the 'fundamental standards and values that have long guided their work,' Peter Adams, a senior vice president of research and design at the News Literacy Project, told CNN. That includes being transparent about using AI in the first place. Many high-profile publishers have been candid about how their newsrooms use AI to bolster reporting. The Associated Press — considered by many within the news industry to be the gold standard for journalism practices, given how it has used AI for translation, summaries and headlines — has avoided gaffes by always including a human backstop. Amanda Barrett, the AP's vice president of standards, told CNN that any information gathered using AI tools is considered unvetted source material, and reporters are responsible for verifying AI-produced information. The AP also checks that its third-party partners have similar AI policies. 'It's really about making sure that your standards are compatible with the partner you're working with and that everyone's clear on what the standard is,' Barrett said. Zack Kass, an AI consultant and former OpenAI go-to-market lead, echoed Barrett, telling CNN that newsrooms need to treat AI 'like a junior researcher with unlimited energy and zero credibility.' This means that AI writing should be 'subject to the same scrutiny as a hot tip from an unvetted source.' 'The mistake is using it like it's a search engine instead of what it really is: an improviser with a genius-level memory and no instinct for truth,' he added. High-profile AI mistakes in newsrooms, when they happen, tend to be very embarrassing. Bloomberg News' AI summaries, for example, were announced in January and already have included several errors. The LA Times' Insights AI in March sympathized with the KKK within 24 hours of its launch. And in January, Apple pulled a feature from its Apple Intelligence AI that incorrectly summarized push notifications from news outlets. That's only recently. For years, newsrooms have struggled when AI has been allowed to proceed unchecked. Gannett in 2023 was forced to pause an AI experiment after several major errors in high school sports articles. And CNET in 2023 published several inaccurate stories. Still, as Felix Simon, a research fellow in AI and digital news at the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, points out, 'the really egregious cases have been few and far between.' New research innovations have reduced hallucinations, or false answers from AI, pushing chatbots to spend more time thinking before responding, Chris Callison-Burch, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN. But they're not infallible, which is how these incidents still occur. 'AI companies need to do a better job communicating to users about the potential for errors, since we have repeatedly seen examples of users misunderstanding how to use technology,' Callison-Burch said. According to Brown, all editorial content at the Sun-Times is produced by humans. Looking forward, the newspaper will ensure that editorial partners, like King Features, uphold those same standards, just as the newspaper already ensures freelancers' codes of ethics mirror its own. But the 'real takeaway,' as Kass put it, isn't just that humans are needed — it's 'why we're needed.' 'Not to clean up after AI, but to do the things AI fundamentally can't,' he said. '(To) make moral calls, challenge power, understand nuance and decide what actually matters.'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
7Rivers Achieves Snowflake Financial Services Industry Competency
MILWAUKEE, May 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- 7Rivers, a Premier Snowflake Services Partner and leader in data and AI consulting, announced that it has achieved the Snowflake Financial Services Industry Competency, a recognition that highlights 7Rivers' proven success delivering innovative, high-impact solutions within the financial services sector using the Snowflake AI Data Cloud. This competency reflects 7Rivers' deep domain expertise and consistent track record of accelerating digital transformation for banks, insurance companies, capital markets firms, and fintechs. Leveraging its proprietary Data Native™ model and a suite of Snowflake accelerators, 7Rivers helps clients unlock business value through AI-infused applications, predictive analytics, and intelligent experiences. "Achieving the Snowflake Financial Services Industry Competency is a meaningful milestone for our team and our clients," said Ben Kerford, President of 7Rivers. "It reinforces our commitment to helping financial institutions navigate modernization with confidence, transforming data into real-world outcomes that drive growth, mitigate risk, and elevate the customer experience." As part of its strategic partnership with Snowflake, 7Rivers empowers financial services organizations to gain greater independence from legacy core providers by simplifying access to their own data. With fewer hurdles to access their data, Banks and Insurance companies are able to more easily and effectively execute on their growth strategies. These include: More effective organic growth strategies by providing a platform on which FI's can more easily identify key customer segments to drive cross-sell/upsell opportunities Enable better predictive modeling for churn prevention, and creating improved and more targeted Marketing initiatives More effectively identify geographic and market expansion opportunities with empirically based analysis Build pro forma modeling scenarios when examining M&A targets Harness the power of generative AI to enhance productivity and automate workflows Optimize Snowflake environments for governance, performance, and cost efficiency Improve regulatory compliance and audit readiness through robust data governance frameworks Support real-time decision-making for trading, claims processing, and underwriting Enhance risk detection capabilities across fraud, AML, and operational risk domains Improve underwriting and risk-scoring models to speed up time-to-offer in lending and insurance As financial institutions grapple with an increasingly complex and escalating risk landscape, economic uncertainty, and an evolving regulatory environment, 7Rivers is actively helping clients stay ahead of the curve. Through our work with leading banks, fintechs, and insurers, we're seeing a surge in focus on: Driving deposit growth and account openings through data-informed personalization and campaign targeting Strengthening fraud detection and risk management with AI-driven surveillance and anomaly detection Streamlining loan and mortgage processing using predictive modeling and automation Enhancing investment analytics with real-time dashboards and AI-backed recommendation engines Transforming the customer experience via personalization, intelligent routing, and AI agents These capabilities are core to our work helping financial institutions evolve into modern, data-driven, Augmented Enterprises. Our solutions are built not only to solve today's problems, but to position clients for tomorrow's opportunities. With deep experience in data vault 2.0, AI/ML, and Snowflake-native architecture, 7Rivers is uniquely positioned to help clients become modern, Augmented Enterprises built for agility, powered by data, and guided by innovation. About 7Rivers7Rivers' mission is to empower businesses to unlock the transformative potential of data and AI, driving unprecedented success for organizations and their teams. Our mission is to support business leaders in realizing the full potential of their data through cutting-edge data modernization, advanced data science, and state-of-the-art AI solutions. As a proud Snowflake Premier Partner, we specialize in turning raw data into actionable insights that deliver tangible impact. From establishing an AI-powered data foundation to identifying high-value use cases and deploying Enterprise LLM solutions and Data Native™ applications, 7Rivers is dedicated to guiding organizations through the complexities of today's dynamic landscape and helping them evolve into augmented enterprises. Discover how 7Rivers can elevate your data strategy and deliver business outcomes at Contact:Jessica EmhoffVice President, Marketing7Riversmarketing@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE 7Rivers Inc. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
7Rivers Achieves Snowflake Financial Services Industry Competency
MILWAUKEE, May 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- 7Rivers, a Premier Snowflake Services Partner and leader in data and AI consulting, announced that it has achieved the Snowflake Financial Services Industry Competency, a recognition that highlights 7Rivers' proven success delivering innovative, high-impact solutions within the financial services sector using the Snowflake AI Data Cloud. This competency reflects 7Rivers' deep domain expertise and consistent track record of accelerating digital transformation for banks, insurance companies, capital markets firms, and fintechs. Leveraging its proprietary Data Native™ model and a suite of Snowflake accelerators, 7Rivers helps clients unlock business value through AI-infused applications, predictive analytics, and intelligent experiences. 'Achieving the Snowflake Financial Services Industry Competency is a meaningful milestone for our team and our clients,' said Ben Kerford, President of 7Rivers. 'It reinforces our commitment to helping financial institutions navigate modernization with confidence, transforming data into real-world outcomes that drive growth, mitigate risk, and elevate the customer experience.' As part of its strategic partnership with Snowflake, 7Rivers empowers financial services organizations to gain greater independence from legacy core providers by simplifying access to their own data. With fewer hurdles to access their data, Banks and Insurance companies are able to more easily and effectively execute on their growth strategies. These include: As financial institutions grapple with an increasingly complex and escalating risk landscape, economic uncertainty, and an evolving regulatory environment, 7Rivers is actively helping clients stay ahead of the curve. Through our work with leading banks, fintechs, and insurers, we're seeing a surge in focus on: These capabilities are core to our work helping financial institutions evolve into modern, data-driven, Augmented Enterprises. Our solutions are built not only to solve today's problems, but to position clients for tomorrow's opportunities. With deep experience in data vault 2.0, AI/ML, and Snowflake-native architecture, 7Rivers is uniquely positioned to help clients become modern, Augmented Enterprises built for agility, powered by data, and guided by innovation. About 7Rivers 7Rivers' mission is to empower businesses to unlock the transformative potential of data and AI, driving unprecedented success for organizations and their teams. Our mission is to support business leaders in realizing the full potential of their data through cutting-edge data modernization, advanced data science, and state-of-the-art AI solutions. As a proud Snowflake Premier Partner, we specialize in turning raw data into actionable insights that deliver tangible impact. From establishing an AI-powered data foundation to identifying high-value use cases and deploying Enterprise LLM solutions and Data Native™ applications, 7Rivers is dedicated to guiding organizations through the complexities of today's dynamic landscape and helping them evolve into augmented enterprises. Discover how 7Rivers can elevate your data strategy and deliver business outcomes at Contact: Jessica Emhoff Vice President, Marketing 7Rivers [email protected] View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE 7Rivers Inc.
