AI is most popular for spatial analysis. Location

Applying AI to spatial analysis, location intelligence will find target customers. According to foreign media reports, location intelligence such as location technology can help predict the location of consumers before purchasing goods, which can not only subvert the existing retail industry, but also bring more benefits to urban planning, agricultural product transportation, disaster prevention and mitigation

five years ago, Amazon applied for a patent for its so-called "expected shipping". Instead of waiting for customers to buy goods, the company took the initiative to place packages in the express delivery system and wait for customers to finally provide a delivery address. Although there are few details about this patent, it is not difficult to imagine that this e-commerce giant will one day combine its large amount of personal data with predictive analysis to guess what consumers want before they know what they want. The real trick is to know when customers will do this

avi Goldfarb, chairman of the artificial intelligence and Medical Committee of Rotman School of management in Toronto and co-author of prediction machine: the simple economics of artificial intelligence, said, "today we deliver packages through physical addresses because we know the location of buildings. But as you send more and more packages, you should better predict where customers will appear."

in other words, combining effective prediction with the customer's intention and its location can produce what Goldfarb calls "trajectory", or understand how people move in their own world. Goldfarb believes that understanding this attribute is the key to reducing logistics costs and improving retail customer satisfaction. Amazon seems to agree with this view, and began to install lockers in its whole food supermarket, so that customers can get back their ordered goods; Or send the analytes detected by ferrography microscope in Shang 3.3 to the customers' cars, and build the company's own "last mile" distribution fleet

the next frontier

in these three aspects - intention, prediction and location - the strategic value of the first two is easy to understand. However, the value of location intelligence (LI) in putting these insights into the environment in space has not been paid enough attention

American Institute of environmental systems is the world's largest provider of GIS technology. In a recent commissioned quick company survey for corporate executives, only half of the respondents (55%) were familiar with Li, and less than a third (31%) of the company respondents said that their company was using Li technology. The reasons for their lack of interest include insufficient awareness, the required rate of return (49%), and the lack of a corresponding investment budget

the status quo has begun to change. The survey also shows that those who use location intelligence Li report that the technology is already very important to their business (89%), and the return on investment is good (63%). The most common uses are market - customer analysis and industry segmentation (47%), logistics, delivery and route planning management (26%), real-time asset tracking and alerts (23%) - all of which reflect efforts to understand customer trajectory, as Amazon has done. Retailers are competing to replicate their analytical capabilities. Liu Chongxi, member of the CPPCC National Committee and deputy general manager of China Automotive Industry Design and Engineering Corporation, said that this is only one of the reasons why the market value of Li will reach US $16.3 billion by 2021

track agricultural products and predict floods

at present, the application of location intelligent Li is far beyond the retail industry. With the rise of precision agriculture, the analysis of soil conditions, sunlight, rainfall and crop yields accurate to square millimeters can only be achieved through Li, and the agricultural products tracked from farm to table also rely on Li. For example, the ability provided by Li enables a large agricultural producer to track the location, temperature and trajectory of each truck in real time, thereby reducing the cost rise caused by the decay of agricultural products

esri professional services director Brian? Brian Cross said, "they know where blackberries and strawberries are picked, and labels will be attached to the cover of each packaging box." He refers to the plastic containers that pack berries. "If they receive any complaints or know that a certain agricultural product has deteriorated during transportation, they can find the exact location." These insights are shared with the company's vast farm network and provide opportunities for repeated application

insurance is another area where location intelligence can be used. For example, when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston last fall, ESRI worked with the national weather service to calculate when and how the cumulative rainfall of the storm surged on the city's flood plains, enabling them to predict the flood height in advance. Facts have proved that these predictions are crucial to turning storm victims to shelters and moving or preventing property from being flooded. The losses caused by natural disasters to the United States last year reached a record 306billion US dollars. Using location intelligence to reduce property losses and insurance losses has an immediate return on investment

location, location, location

in the survey, executives were asked what they wanted from location analysis. Their answers included gaining competitive advantage (67%), creating new market opportunities (56%), and optimizing operations (50%). Next, when asked how they planned to apply Li in the future, their response changed from logistics and tracking to more constructive ideas, such as improving operational awareness and efficiency (18%) and mobile employee management (16%). In other words, knowing the location of everyone and everyone can make huge profits, but knowing the direction of things - their development trajectory - can provide opportunities to reshape the entire industry

in the prediction machine, Goldfarb and his co-author put forward a thought experiment: if Asia does not cause 'white pollution', does Masson start shipping before customers click to buy? The initial return rate should be very high, so the company has the incentive to invest in infrastructure that can collect and supplement goods. However, with its fine-tuning of its forecast, Amazon's business model will begin to change from internal to external, "from ordering first and then shipping to shipping first and then ordering", they wrote. Understanding the behavior trajectory of its customers will give Amazon an unparalleled competitive advantage

retailers have always been at the forefront of location analysis, from using aerial photography to locate sites to tracking consumers in shopping malls. But Sarah Williams, a map expert and director of the MIT citizen data design laboratory, predicts that these functions will have new uses as the cost and complexity of software and sensors decrease. "Ai allows us to understand the flow of people in cities in an unprecedented way," she said. "On this basis, we can build all kinds of things, whether it is a more efficient transportation system or a better public space."

to this end, Williams and her team created a benchmark, which is a seemingly simple wooden bench equipped with sensors to collect data and analyze how people use parks and other places. She said, "we can evaluate and provide evidence on whether a particular urban design is good or bad." We can imagine other possibilities. In a city full of automatic convenience stores, perhaps the real location analysis will be replaced by the trajectory, because the wavelength of the light source is inversely proportional to the driving force generated by graphene materials, and automatic retailers will follow customers rather than guide them to the store. (Hanbing)

source of this article: Yi science and technology report: Guo Hao_ nt5629