Early adopters in the golf industry are using AI to have daily conversations with their databases to mine business insights — freeing them up from keyboards forevermore. The capability may seem like sci-fi to some. But for those in the know, chatting daily with their databases — as if they’re talking with Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant or a similar voice interface system — has become second nature.
“As consumers, we’ve grown accustomed to simply asking our smart speakers or mobile assistants to authoritatively resolve any factual questions or trivia disputes,” says Chen Zhang, chief technology officer, RAIN, a voice tech company. “Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri have grown incredibly robust in the knowledge graphs they consult to perform these tricks of effortless data access — and clever in how they return results that balance brevity with some helpful context.”
Bottom line: Voice tech as a rapid, convenient gateway to knowledge can be transformational for employees, fundamentally changing how they interact with the business computer system, how they deal with data and how they dig for business insights every day, Zhang adds.
Granted, AI-powered talking databases are still so new to the Golf Car/LSV retail industry, many dealers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Abel Alvarez, owner of Texas Golf Carts, for example, is still in ‘show-me’ mode when it comes to AI. “We really aren’t using any AI assistance in our business”, Alavarez says.
And while Aaron Rasmussen, operations manager at Streetrod Golf Cars, says he’s open to voice-driven database systems, he’s hanging back on the new tech for now. Says Rasmussen: “We make (and retail) premium level, custom golf cars — so our scale is small and AI technology isn’t a large part of our process at this time. That may change in the future as we explore options.”
Even so, the golf industry has been among a number of early adopters of voice access database technology for many years now. Case in point: A voice access gadget popular with golfers — known as the GB Voice 2S — which uses GPS to precisely tell a golfer how far any golf ball is from the green. Made by Golfbuddy America, the GPS device uses a computerized voice to give you a read on the best wood or iron to use next.
Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz — which as many dealers know makes its own golf car — began experimenting with its own an AI-powered voice access database this past summer. An upgrade to the company’s already existing ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice query system for drivers, the experimental enhancement promises to offer AI-enabled responses to driver questions about destinations, weather, traffic and other driving-related info
As you might imagine, voice access to a Golf Car/LSV dealership database works on the same principle as the GB Voice and Hey Mercedes. But there’s a significant difference in execution. Generally, voice responses from a thoroughly AI-powered database system for a Golf Car/LSV dealership are much more sophisticated than what you’d get from a consumer-grade system. Plus, the analysis offered by such voice AI systems is also much more in-depth.
Fortunately, despite the complexity under-the-hood, these voice AI systems are very easy-to-use. With just a few moments of interaction, management and workers at a Golf Car/LSV dealership can voice-query their business’ database on-the-run, for example, and grab a quick insight just before, during, or after a meeting. In addition, such systems also enable users to converse with their databases in much more depth if they prefer — enabling them to query the voice-accessible database with numerous follow-up questions and what-ifs.
With the most sophisticated of systems, these kinds of drill-downs to insight are only limited by the number of questions and follow-ups a user has the imagination to dream-up.
Even better for Golf Car/LSV dealerships: Numerous AI-powered voice query systems can seamlessly interface with popular business intelligence (BI) systems that are sometimes used at dealerships– such as Snowflake, Power BI, Pentaho Analysis and Microsoft SQL Server. So if your dealership is using one of those BI systems, your business should be able to easily convert its database to voice-enabled.
Yet another perk: No matter how much information your dealership currently has stored in its database, you’ll find AI-powered voice query is always up to the task. That’s even true if you literally have millions of rows of data in your SQL or Non-SQL database system. For example, a manager at a golf car / lsv dealership can use AI-powered voice query to naturally converse with a database and unearth:
- How many of our used Golf Car/LSV’s are due for maintenance, where are they located and how quickly can they be readied for sale?
- How do our sales for this March compare to March sales for last year — and what key factors are influencing the difference in those numbers?
- Who are the top three salespeople at our Golf Car/LSV dealership chain right now — and what characteristics do these salespeople share in common?
- Who are the top 50 repeat customers at our dealership during the past five years – — and what buying patterns do they share in common?
- What is your projection for our total sales of golf cars for 2024 — and what are the top five factors influencing that projection?
- What is your projection for our total sales of LSV’s for 2024 — and what are the top five factors influencing that projection?
In each case, management and workers at your dealership never need to go near a keyboard to access data and analysis. Data, insights, ideas — it’s all available via simple conversation. Yet another bonus: Many of these voice access systems are also able to serve-up all the typical charts, graphs and other visuals you’ve become accustomed to with a keyboard-driven business intelligence system.
Observes Warren B. Powell, chief innovation officer, Optical Dynamics, an AI services software provider: “Using voice to enter commands — and then using screens to display lists and maps — seems like an unbeatable combination.”
Yet another beauty using AI-powered voice query with your database: Many of the systems have the ability to handle new types of questions, on-the-fly. The reason: AI-powered voice query is, by its very nature, generally designed to handle new types of questions that the system has never heard before — and still come-up with an insightful answer.
Many of the systems are also designed to auto-integrate these new types of questions into their problem-solving abilities. The rationale: The next time around, the system is better prepared to handle those kind of questions. In a phrase, these AI voice systems are designed to continually learn over time — and they continually get smarter, nimbler and more informed with their answers.
You’ll also probably find that with newfound conversational access to your business database system, more of your workers will be more apt to interact with your business database more often — and more thoughtfully. Most likely, they’ll appreciate that voice access systems are often not plagued by perceptions associated with traditional database systems, such as being:
- Too hard to use
- Outdated, in terms of the kinds of reports that are offered
- Molasses-slow, given that it often takes very long to secure a new kind of report from a traditional database system — a report that often must be designed by an expert data scientist
If you’re looking to evaluate voice access for your dealership’s database, you can check-out this representative sampling of vendors who offer solutions:
In addition, you’ll also want to keep an eye on a new player: OpenAI. The maker of ChatGPT — the AI chatbot that dazzled millions during the past year with its ability to answer virtually any question — OpenAI recently added voice access to ChatGPT’s bag-of-tricks, according to OpenAI researcher Alec Radford.
That means ChatGPT can now be paired with virtually any type of database that is used by a Golf Car/LSV dealer — with just a little tweaking from any number of AI programmers. The sweetener: OpenAI also has a special ChatGPT Enterprise version you can use for making the pairing, which is designed to ensure that any data your businesses shares with ChatGPT is kept private.
