Apex Technology Blog

Artificial intelligence is all the rage these days. In fact, most businesses are using it for a multitude of things. With everyone all-aboard the AI train, it’s easy to confuse the computational power and speed AI offers to be infallible. Unfortunately, AI can get things going sideways if you aren’t careful. When it does go wrong, the consequences can be more than just an inconvenience.

Here's a look at some of the most critical ways AI can go wrong:

Pop culture has given us a vivid, if often terrifying, impression of artificial intelligence. When we hear AI, many still picture calculated malice: a HAL 9000, a Skynet, or an Ultron.

The real potential of AI is far more productive, it's less about calculating world domination and more about becoming your organization's most helpful collaborator. Think of it as a JARVIS for your executive team or an R2-D2 for your operational staff: a powerful tool that assists your team in generating ideas, solving complex problems, and completing high-volume tasks. Critically, maximizing this potential doesn't require new hardware; it requires sharpening the very soft skills we already value in our top performers: curiosity, empathy, and resilience.

Did you know that during World War II, Allied codebreakers didn't just crack the German Enigma code with pure math? They also used clever tricks, like baiting the Germans into sending predictable messages, to expose the machine's inner workings. History proves this approach worked then, and (unfortunately) continues to work now.

This art of manipulating a system to reveal its secrets has found a new, high-tech home in the world of artificial intelligence. It's called prompt hacking, and it's essentially a form of digital social engineering aimed directly at the AI models businesses are starting to rely on.

AI has revolutionized the way businesses operate, streamlining various tasks and changing how knowledge-based businesses function in record time. One of the ways that businesses are using AI is customer support, but how effective is it really? Is there any merit to maintaining the human element of your customer service, or said in a different way, what can human customer support offer that AI cannot?

We wanted to take a minute to talk a little bit about something we all cherish: hope. Hope is a powerful force and it constantly propels us forward and can brighten even the darkest days. We hope for good health, happy families, and definitely that winning lottery ticket.

Unfortunately, hope is a terrible cybersecurity strategy.

It isn’t uncommon for many people to make up an answer that they feel seems plausible if asked something they don’t have an answer to. It happens all the time.

As it turns out, this is a tendency that artificial intelligence has inherited from us.

Smart speakers have been around for a while, but let’s be honest—they haven’t exactly changed the world. Sure, they’re great for playing music, setting timers, and answering random trivia questions, but beyond that? Not much has evolved. So, how did we get here, and what’s next? More importantly, can they actually be useful for businesses, or are they just another gadget collecting dust?

Besides all of those people who are advocating for the scaling back or non-implementation of tools to save jobs, most people understand the benefit of automation when it makes sense. Not only do machines tend to do certain tasks more effectively, they never willingly take a day off. Unfortunately, for every task that needs to be completed less than half can be automated, and that number drops even further when you take into account everything a human does at their job. Today, there are very few jobs that can be fully automated; even as AI has begun to be used more for business. This week, we wanted to discuss why automation may not be the answer you are looking for and why training humans holds a lot of value.

The big thing in business computing is AI, or artificial intelligence, and businesses are implementing it to solve a lot of repetitive problems that free up their employees to serve other roles. One such area is for IT support. But is it worth it to chat with a robot when something as important as IT is on the line?

Artificial intelligence is everywhere, and it is making data more valuable than ever. This is because AI platforms rely heavily on data to function effectively. Many platforms and services collect data from their users to fuel these algorithms. LinkedIn has recently been found to do this—by default—without properly informing its users or updating its terms of service.

One of the many tasks undertaken by the United Nations is to protect human rights around the globe while also working to create more sustainable and climate-friendly development. As such, the UN has recently taken a healthy interest in the development of artificial intelligence, hoping to develop guidelines that allow us to get the most value out of AI without creating more significant problems.

AI has become a major tool all throughout the modern economy. Businesses are using technology with built-in AI, and that’s because it improves operational efficiency. Let's take a look at some of the benefits small businesses can take advantage of with AI.

Businesses are constantly trying to find a way to best use their data. Whether it is creating a business intelligence strategy, integrating artificial intelligence, or for simple analytics, without having accurate, reliable data, the insights you derive can be misleading and end up costing you. That’s why it is important to know how to scrub or clean your data. Having access to clean data is essential for anyone involved in business intelligence or AI. Today, we will discuss the issue and give you a simple guide to help you get started.

While AI is far from perfect, I always love discovering ways that it can help do something mundane and speed up a workflow here or there. I’m no expert in Photoshop either, so if I need to edit something, I usually depend on someone with a little more experience, but this was a really neat trick I was able to do in just a few minutes!

2023 was a banner year for artificial intelligence, with the technology exploding into the mainstream and being more accessible by the public than ever before. Let’s explore how what we’ve seen in the past year in terms of AI has changed things for workers and workplaces everywhere.

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has become a bona fide buzzword amongst businesses of all sizes, with 97% of respondents to a Forbes survey seeing a potential benefit in some way, shape, or form. However, with it being integrated everywhere in our modern lives, it is important that we remember that AI is still a human invention, as as such, it is vulnerable to our own implicit biases.

AI has unquestionably emerged as the standout technology of the year, and it was only a matter of time before Microsoft entered the arena with its own enterprise-ready AI platform. The introduction of Microsoft CoPilot has sparked a fair amount of confusion and left many questions unanswered, so today our aim is to shed light on what CoPilot is and explain the value you can expect to get out of the new Microsoft AI.

While artificial intelligence is frequently hyped up to the point that it seems to be plucked from the realm of science fiction, its true applications are actually much more mundane. That being said, these applications are often the ones that show the most promise in terms of the value they have to offer society.

For instance, let’s consider the work that Google is doing through something called Project Green Light.

With the release of the 2023 edition of their annual Work Trend Index report, dedicated to exploring the topic of Will AI Fix Work?, Microsoft took a deep dive into the impact that artificial intelligence will have on the workplace in the future. This report ultimately resulted in three major conclusions, which we felt we should help amplify and contextualize.

It seems that you can’t turn your head nowadays without seeing artificial intelligence being incorporated into some software or platform. However, many leaders in the technology space have expressed their concerns about—as they put it—the “profound risks to society and humanity” that AI poses, outlined in an open letter.