Alan Timothy starts his presentation on artificial intelligence with a disclaimer.
As founder and president of Bubo.AI, Timothy says the seemingly sudden boom of interest into AI devices like Chat GPT and Midjourney is not going to go away. AI technology is advancing and now that it’s readily available, it will only continue to do so.
But Timothy also notes despite the headlines, AI is far from ubiquitous. He says far more people are talking about that than actually using it. And he estimates that’s going to continue to be the case in the immediate years ahead.
Speaking Monday at the Commercial Vehicle Solutions Network (CVSN) Summit in Boston, Timothy says artificial intelligence has reached Level 3 (of seven) on the famous Turing Test. He says that means while AI isn’t quite ready for solving all of our most complex problems, it can now be useful in certain applications when properly deployed.
One application in particular could be wholesale distribution pricing.
In the aftermarket, where businesses manage hundreds of thousands of SKUs and have multi-tiered pricing for almost all of them, wholesale pricing changes have always been challenging. Coupled with the increase in scope and frequency of vendor pricing updates due to post-pandemic inflation, the process is now downright overwhelming.
AI could offer distributors a lifeline, and that’s what Timothy wants to do with Bubo.AI.
