From personal assistants who help shoppers choose the right outfit to programs which can identify new sales prospects, artificial intelligence is transforming the user experience and helping companies to boost sales.
Where's the R&D?
Chatbots can hold multilingual conversations with customers on social media while managing the ordering process. AI can help retailers to understand buyers’ behaviour and make more relevant product suggestions. It can match buyers and sellers, tackle fake reviews or spot counterfeit products.
Incredibly, these capabilities are available in the form of off the shelf tools such as Facebook’s Bots for Messenger, or IBM’s Watson which can converse with people, identify their face and give insights into their personality.
The challenge lies in integrating them into your existing systems and adapting them to your needs.
AS THIS TYPE OF WORK IS LIKELY TO QUALIFY AS R&D, IT MEANS THAT COMPANIES CAN CLAIM TAX RELIEF TO TAKE THEIR SYSTEM TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
Where's the R&D?
Adrian Williamson, a former software development manager and engineer who is now an expert on R&D tax credits with Jumpstart, says: “Many businesses see AI as the next step forward and are looking at ways to incorporate it in their system or product, or raise investment to do so.
“R&D tax credits can help to set the cost and in some cases with early-stage companies, can even provide lump sum payments. However to be sure that you claim the full entitlement, our advice is to use an adviser who understands both the tax rules and the technical issues involved in projects of this type.”
Do you recognise any of these situations?
Or have a project that may fit the bill? If so, speak to a specialist adviser as interpreting the rules correctly and using the right terminology is crucial to success with any claim.
Adrian Williamson has over 30 years’ experience as a software engineer. He is now an expert on R&D tax credits, advising clients in web and app development, third party integration, IT infrastructure, SEO and cloud technology.
