Although artificial intelligence has been one of the hot topics of the past year, it has been around for a very long time, dating to the 1940s. Over the past 20 to 30 years, there have been many permutations of what is often called traditional AI—and not just in the world of finance. Now, we’re living through a new boom of the technology in the form of generative AI.

Billtrust, a B2B order-to-cash and digital payments software leader based in New Jersey, has been at the forefront of these emerging AI solutions for all types of companies. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Ahsan Shah, Senior Vice President of Data Analytics at Billtrust, sat down with Christopher Miller, Lead Analyst of Emerging Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, to talk about where AI is making the most significant impact on businesses, now and into the future.

PaymentsJournalWhat the Next Wave of AI Will Do for Business ProcessesPaymentsJournal What the Next Wave of AI Will Do for Business ProcessesPaymentsJournaljQuery(document).ready(function ($){var settings_ap12374844 = { design_skin: "skin-wave" ,autoplay: "off",disable_volume:"default" ,loop:"off" ,cue: "on" ,embedded: "off" ,preload_method:"metadata" ,design_animateplaypause:"off" ,skinwave_dynamicwaves:"off" ,skinwave_enableSpectrum:"off" ,skinwave_enableReflect:"on",settings_backup_type:"full",playfrom:"default",soundcloud_apikey:"" ,skinwave_comments_enable:"off",settings_php_handler:window.ajaxurl,skinwave_wave_mode:"canvas",pcm_data_try_to_generate: "on","pcm_notice": "off","notice_no_media": "on",design_color_bg: "111111",design_color_highlight: "ef6b13",skinwave_wave_mode_canvas_waves_number: "3",skinwave_wave_mode_canvas_waves_padding: "1",skinwave_wave_mode_canvas_reflection_size: "0.25",skinwave_comments_playerid:"12374844",php_retriever:"https://www.paymentsjournal.com/wp-content/plugins/dzs-zoomsounds/soundcloudretriever.php" }; try{ dzsap_init(".ap_idx_434197_28",settings_ap12374844); }catch(err){ console.warn("cannot init player", err); } });

What’s New in Generative AI

Industries have been using AI tools like anomaly detection and classification for decades. But the new wave of generative AI uses language models as a fundamentally different approach, which can then be combined with traditional AI to solve business problems. That has resulted in a lot of excitement but also a lot of confusion about what is and what is not AI.

Generative AI is a language-based capability, offering an interface that nobody expected to happen this quickly in the AI evolution. In the past, when individuals spoke in a common language, it required a great deal of modeling and training data. But with open AI, these foundational models can translate language to code, to an action language, or to SQL. “It doesn’t circumvent what could be done with traditional AI,” Shah said, “but now you have a different toolkit in the box to be able to use language in capabilities, and fundamentally all of our customers speak in certain languages. And so this offers almost a new door of possibilities and features across the stack, across the industries, across various domains.” 

Miller added: “What you’re saying is we shouldn’t really talk about artificial intelligence, but maybe about artificial intelligences. The ways that we would use these different flavors of artificial intelligence really vary from one another. The types of problems or business applications that are right for generative AI might not be right for a strictly deep learning approach.” 

Where generative AI may be most helpful is in the interface layer with customer service,