AI Journey 2024: Why is AI So Confusing to Understand?  

As we enter into the 2nd half of the year, companies are more confused than ever about what AI is and what it actually does. Artificial Intelligence has been around in some form or another for almost 70+ years, and if you really want to get technical, its history goes back to the beginning of time. Everything that has been invented and lasts uses machine learning in some form or another. This may seem abstract to a degree, but how many times did the steam engine get built and rebuilt until it was ready to be used widely? To perfect all of its parts and ensure the engine worked took thousands of hours to plan, build, and optimize. AI is no different. Instead of parts to make up the engine, AI needs data to build its large language models to provide predictability and reliability.  

The hype cycle around AI, particularly Generative AI is at an all-time high, and with good reason. GPT-4o was announced in May, and the pace of change I am seeing in the software development space is astounding. New paradigms and applications are ready to be built. Critical decisions are being promised, and the world is changing under our feet. 

The question I ask is, are we even ready for this, and do people even understand what “AI” really is? 

Problem: A Property Management company needed to automate their large Yardi utility bill processing activity as part of their daily office and finance activities.

As part of their digital transformation initiative the Property Management organization had been struggling to keep up with the daily requirement of importing bills into their Yardi system. Timeliness and accuracy were a major concern for the customer. The customer consulted with CampTek Software to vet-out the process and analyze the viability to automate the process. The results were discussed with the customer, and CampTek was chosen to build a Yardi bot to solve the problem.

Prior to automation, the staff had to manually process this mundane but critical process as part of their daily activity. The organization was taxed from a capacity standpoint due to the current staffing and labor challenges. The process includes business rules and exceptions that must be adhered to for accurate accounting practices.

Solution: Invoices are scanned as part of the automated bot process; the bot extracts the utility bill data from the invoices (Bill type, Invoice date, Invoice number, and Amount) and inputs it into an excel file. The bot then reads the file and inputs the data into Yardi for processing. It also adds the invoice as a pdf into Yardi. The bot then goes and updates the input excel file of its status. As part of the CampTek solution a custom dashboard is also available for viewing, which gives the customers a daily view as to the success of the bot along with valuable analysis and KPIs.