Top Industries That Remote Workers Are Modernizing

By Appen. August 16, 2018

Remote work is a modern way to improve your work-life balance. Whether you’re searching for tasks on a full-time or a part-time basis, online freelancers are having a lasting effect on products in all types of industries. An opportunity to work remotely is an opportunity to modernize the global workforce. Remote workers complete tasks in a variety of functions. When it comes to technology, data collection is necessary for progress. With the right kind of data, the world’s most advanced companies offer products that make daily life increasingly efficient. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are two revolutionary technologies that are powered by online workers. Here are five industries that are assigning data collection tasks to a remote workforce:

1. Retail

In a traditional brick-and-mortar store, shoppers ask a salesperson for help when they need it. In an online shopping experience, it’s up to the website to anticipate a customer’s needs. Data from online workers help your favorite companies deliver a personalized shopping experience. Feedback about an eCommerce website can even be provided by customers who work from home. For example, web search evaluators provide data that connects products with the proper search terms. When a website suggests recommended items, it’s also relying on data from human evaluators. By adapting to customer behavior, website engagement increases and users become more likely to shop online for products in the future.

2. Healthcare

Patient data has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with hospitals, insurers, and medical-technology companies. With the proper analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence models predict healthcare trends. The ability to forecast patient needs is important for anticipating potential outbreaks. Predictive care can even help pharmacies maintain the right levels of inventory. By helping hospitals and pharmacies become more efficient, insurance companies benefit too. Pricing models for insurance plans will become more effective with high-quality data. Medical and health information can be organized by a remote workforce. With better data, hospitals can train their medical staff to provide the best care for patients seeking help remotely. Online customer service is also improved by remote workers. By practicing with human annotators, chatbots can learn to guide patients to the right medical resources. This reactiveness is critical in situations that require a quick response time. In this way, remote workers enable medical services to be accessed by patients in hard-to-reach locations.

3. Automotive

Flexible work is bringing voice recognition and autonomous driving to the automotive industry. Data sets helps sensors identify objects while driving on the road. These data sets are created by human annotators. An annotator looks at a picture of a driving scenario. Then, they use software to show computers what each unique objects looks like. For example, if a picture or video of a roadway includes a tree, a light post, and a pedestrian, remote workers label each of them accordingly. It takes millions of these data sets to train a machine for autonomous driving. Voice recognition is another technology that relies on data sets to properly train a computer. Automotive companies are teaching their cars to understand customers who speak different languages. As this technology becomes more advanced, data for specific dialects is important too. Maybe you know someone who speaks the same language as you, but with a different accent. Remote workers provide the audio samples that help these machines listen more carefully. With the highest-quality data, self-driving cars may even be able to tell what emotions a person is feeling. If someone is frustrated or worried, an autonomous vehicle can make adjustments to provide a better driving experience.

4. Government

A remote job can help improve the government services in your country. Advanced government services are particularly important in emergency situations. For example, in countries where multiple languages are spoken, computer-enabled translation services help keep people safe. Predictive government services are also improved by online workers. Data from human users can help law enforcement prevent national security threats. This is achieved by computers that understand trends in social media and other types of online communication. The remote workforce is helpful for official record keeping, too. Transcription services help government agencies keep track of police reports and footage from body cameras in the field.

5. Finances

Leading financial companies use machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve their customer experience. Data from remote workers enable these companies to make decisions faster, smarter, and at a lower cost. This helps banks provide the right products to the right people. By improving their machine-learning algorithms, financial advisors can create investment strategies with high returns. Financial security services are also improved by the remote workforce. Data sets structured for machine-learning and artificial-intelligence projects help banks identify fraud. Anti-money-laundering and know-you-customer programs teach computers to identify anomalies in banking behavior. With a secure transaction process, companies protect their customers from potential losses.

Businesses in all types of industries are using remote workers to improve their machine learning and artificial intelligence programs. This investment by industry leaders is modernizing the workforce for a digital world. As data collection improves, it takes a human touch to organize unstructured data and turn it into structured data sets that are used to train computers. From image annotation to evaluation services and project management, finding a remote job is more accessible than ever. A flexible schedule in a familiar work environment is a modern way to take control of your work-life balance. — If you enjoyed reading our article about Top Industries that Remote Workers are Modernizing, visit appen.com/careers to see our available opportunities.