The Covid-19 pandemic led to a contraction in many sectors globally, however, countries are learning to accelerate digital transformation to achieve economic recovery.
According to a report by IBM; an IT technology and consulting firm, 43% of global businesses accelerated their rollout of AI over the last year as organisations looked to virtual assistants to automate workflows while 80% have plans to roll out some form of automation software over the next 12 months.
Like many sectors in the country, Nigerian agriculture suffered a huge blow due to the pandemic which saw a lot of farmers on lockdown thereby leading destruction of farm produce, an implication that has continued to be felt by consumers and fuelling consumers’ distrusts in the long run.
For AI to continue to advance in these areas, companies and organisations need to make progress in earning greater consumer trust. Meanwhile, in recent times, the battle for consumer trust takes place on multiple fronts, from the ability to make AI decisions understandable and explainable to providing consumers with confidence that their personal data is being protected against cyberattacks.
AI trends have the potential to create enormous benefits for consumers and will help tackle Nigeria’s biggest challenges by being more trustworthy, explainable, transparent and fair. According to IBM, the following AI trend will give the agricultural sector and organisations a digital advantage in 2022:
- Creating a reliable sustainable future
- Improving sustainable farming on land by helping farmers to forecast weather conditions
- Opening up horizons for the agriculture ecosystem, allowing farmers to produce more with fewer resources, and consequently to be more efficient, profitable and sustainable.
- Delivering sustainable aquaculture to help recover the oceans
- Helping businesses reduce cost by applying AI to better predict IT issues.
