Bringing together Blockchain and AI technologies – the impact, advantages, and challenges!

By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on November 30th, 2024 6:32 am | 5-min read

Emerging as one of the key driving forces in the world of technology, Blockchain technology has brought about a revolution across a varied range of industries by adding the much-coveted additional layer of security and transparency. It is for this reason that the new-age entrepreneurs are falling in love with it!

AI or Artificial Intelligence has had a similar impact in the world of business, particularly its application in chatbots which has managed to take customer or user experience to new heights. The technology has established itself as a key factor across the whole range of business categories.

In their own fields, the two technologies in their own way have paved path for the onset of a new business age. What if these two were brought together? Have you ever wondered what kind of an impact this combination or merger will have on each other and on the technological and business world?

Before we get into it, let’s have a quick look at the kind of impact the two technologies have in the current business and technology scenario.

Artificial Intelligence – A Brief Overview

Artificial Intelligence is precisely what it is called, it is a technology to create intelligence artificially, in machines so that they can mimic human intelligence. This technology is responsible for bringing about a massive shift in the way business is conducted and particularly in the way customer service is offered.

AI – Defining Features

Efficient Data Management
Personalization
Near Accurate Future Prediction
Massive Error Reduction
Real-Time Response
Data Mining

Blockchain Technology – A Brief Overview

One of the most innovative technologies, Blockchain is essentially a distributed ledger to record all the transactions in nodes in a secure and transparent manner. It is because of its unique characteristics that the technology has created a massive disruption in the business world in more ways than one which has led to everyone sitting up and taking note!

Blockchain Technology – Defining Features

Immutable
Decentralized Technology
Distributed Ledgers
Enhanced Security
Increased Transparency
Consensus

Impact of AI on Blockchain System

With all that’s great about Blockchain technology, there of course are some limitations to it as well. This is where Artificial Intelligence steps in and helps Blockchain system emerge as the perfect solution in more ways than one!

Artificial Intelligence can help manage the data in Blockchain systems in a better way
The use of AI leads to an improved energy consumption
AI brings in more scalability
Suitable use of AI enhances efficiency of the Blockchain systems
AI can bring in additional security in the Blockchain systems
AI brings in new data gates

Impact of Blockchain on the AI ecosystem

AI is iconic and groundbreaking on its own, but when it is combined with the Blockchain technology the AI ecosystem will go through an evolutionary change on its own.

The Blockchain technology, when used with AI will bring about better transactions
With Blockchain technology teaming up with the AI ecosystem you get access to high-quality data
The use of Blockchain technology in the AI ecosystem brings about a decentralized intelligence
Blockchain system can lower the market entry barriers in the AI environment
As it is a key trait of Blockchain technology, it does bring in greater transparency to AI
Blockchain system has the potential to improve the artificial trust in the AI environment

Advantages of the Merger – The Big Picture

Blockchain and AI, the two technologies can come together to form a single entity of its own kind. This merger can resolve a number of challenges and bring about numerous opportunities. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Enhanced Decision Making
The decision making will get better as AI algorithms will help detect frauds and risks related to any transaction and Blockchain with its simple secure data auditing process will help improve the data accuracy used by AI algorithms for fraud prevention.
Personalization with Enhanced Security
AI will be working with extremely sensitive data and Blockchain with its cryptography encryption technique will ensure that all the data is immutable and secure. This will prevent data violation, hence eliminating a scenario where AI fails to serve the customers with suitable personalized experience.
This means here, Blockchain will be offering security with encryption while AI will be providing greater privacy to the end users in terms of their experience on any platform that uses data secured by Blockchain technology.
Added Trust Factor
As these two robust technologies come together, users would be able to see the exact way in which their information is stored, managed, and employed without making any compromises on the privacy and security. This in turn will help them in auditing every step of the decision-making process, thus enhancing the public trust.
Better Accessibility
The coming together of AI and Blockchain technologies will smoothen payment processes. Cryptocurrencies based on the Blockchain technology will bring down the currency barriers and foster international trading and AI will enhance the overall operational efficiency of the process, guarantee stronger security, and bring down the overall cost.
Newer Business Models
Dual technologies of any kind are notoriously responsible for introducing newer business models. Blockchain technology will make it possible to offer smooth access to all the information in the entire business ecosystem as all the stakeholders would be able to contribute immutable data without being concerned about its ownership. This means that AI system would have the opportunity to get deeper insights from the patterns, behaviors or any other related factors. The final result – more factually correct decisions are delivered giving way to newer business models!
Smart(er) Contracts
There are many perks of using Smart Contracts in the business world like greater speed, minimal or even zero dispute, enhanced data storage, and more. However, due to its high sophistication, they haven’t been exploited to their greatest potential. Integrating AI in Blockchain will help Smart Contracts encode and validate complex commercial relationships on a blockchain.
This is how Smart Contracts can be improved greatly upon! Apart from that, the self-executing contracts offer varying quality levels according to the price changes managed by the system based on AI.

Impact of the Merger on various Industries

Healthcare
Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technology independently are creating new opportunities for both, the patients and the healthcare service providers. The coming together of the two technologies raise up the level of services exponentially for both the parties.
With this merger, the medical records can be safeguarded against cyberattacks while being accessible in a decentralized layer. This would give people ownership of their data and eliminate the monopoly that corporate giants like Google and Apple have been enjoying for far too long! Patients would be empowered to share their data with others on their own terms and receive personalized response.
Retail
Artificial Intelligence has brought about a paradigm shift in the way retail industry functions. This merger will effectively double the impact! Blockchain and AI will come together to empower the retailers in saving the insights they receive from their customers in the form of immutable blocks while recording the whole process. These records can come in handy in figuring out the factors involved in the even t of any marketing campaign’s failure. Additionally, the security and transparency brought in by Blockchain technology will make the payment process better and eliminate any risks for fraudulent activity.
Supply Chain
The merger or coming together of Blockchain and AI has the potential to create an all new ecosystem or environment here. When acting as a single unit, the two technologies can effectively optimize the entire supply chains in a lot more secure and effective manner while offering a deeper insight into what should go in the first place. The entire process is bound to enhance the experience of everyone involved, bringing in greater profits.
Finance
The merger of Blockchain and AI in the Finance industry will bring about a certain streamlining of processes. Through Smart Contracts, Blockchain has the ability to build trust in the industry and AI will bring down the dependency on humans for understanding emotions and predicting the next action. The cumulative impact would lead to an increase in the amount of automation and levels of performance.
Government
The coming together of Blockchain and AI has the potential of bringing about a transformation in the way democracy is defined today. This merger of technologies will transfer the control of data from only a group of individuals to the entire public while ensuring that security and quality of data is maintained.
Apart from that, the merger of AI and Blockchain will help trace the e-voting procedures and make them accessible to all citizens in real time.

Challenges of Blockchain-AI merger

For all that’s great about the merger between the iconic technologies like Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, there are some challenges that need to be conquered! Let’s talk about the challenges now.

Blockchain technology, by nature is decentralized and has heterogenous nodes. This means that if the technology were to be public and open sourced, getting the AI outputs to come at a single point would definitely be a challenge
Both the technologies are poles apart from one another and the merger is a fairly new experiment. It is for this reason that there still needs to be put in a lot of money and time to explore the potential of this merger and identify common grounds.
Security can also pose a big challenge when it comes to merging the two technologies. Blockchain is a decentralized, distributed and securely encrypted database that serves AI with unlimited and reliable information. Stealing data from Blockchain systems is a daunting task, simply because it is based on cryptographic algorithms. The challenge, however, emerges when you have to let AI make changes into the secured data to return with better predictions. For this phase to be completed, you must decrypt the files first which opens the merger up to hackers.
One major challenge in bringing together the two technologies is the need for a much higher computing power!

Wrapping Up

Every technology has its own set of advantages, limitations and challenges. However, when these two technologies come together, they only strengthen each other filling voids and bringing ease, security, and power to the users and service providers across industries!

Now that you know the power this merger has, it is time to go and build your own app powered with Artificial Intelligence or Blockchain technology, right here on Appy Pie and kick up a storm!