Artificial intelligence has been improving many areas of business from sales forecasting to customer personalisation. But what about safety? Can AI be used to make companies safer? Below are just a few examples of ways in which AI is starting to be used to strengthen safety in business.

PPE detection

Making sure that all workers are wearing adequate PPE is essential in certain industries like construction and manufacturing. Until recently, companies have relied on manual inspections. Now AI could help to take over - using cameras, AI can now detect when someone is not wearing PPE or not wearing it properly.

Personnel who aren’t wearing the correct PPE can then be alerted. This is thought to be very useful in large or crowded workplaces in the future where regular manual inspections aren’t always reliable or practical. 

Emergency stop features

AI is also starting to be integrated with machinery in order to make it safer to operate. Heavy vehicle machinery such as forklifts and cranes are now being fitted with sensors that can be used to automatically stop the machine if it gets too close to another object - this can help to prevent dangerous collisions.

Automatic emergency stop features can also be integrated into various forms of industrial machinery helping machinery to stop before catastrophe occurs - this could include automatic shutdown features if a machine gets too hot or if contaminants are detected.

Geospatial AI

Geospatial AI uses data recorded via maps. This can be used to improve safety for various types of industries. Within healthcare, it is often used to map out diseases and help reduce the spread. Within industries like fishing and sea travel, geospatial AI can be used to forecast weather and sea conditions to plan safe journeys. Geospatial AI can also be used for tasks like dam monitoring or earthquake response. All in all, it has lots of applications.

Robotics and AI

Robots can be programmed to automatically carry out tasks using AI. This may include tasks that are dangerous for humans such as inspecting the inside of pipelines and cleaning nuclear sites. Drones are now starting to be used in many industries like construction and rescue - they can be used to inspect a location from above, often accessing locations that would be dangerous to climb to such as the top of radio masts and cliffs. This is starting to be combined with AI to enable automatic monitoring of information.

VR training

In some industries, AI is being combined with VR in order to help with training. Things like surgeries can be simulated or tested using VR. Military operations can also be drilled in a much more realistic manner using VR.

Such technology may even be able to record data on a user’s behaviour so they can learn and improve how to do a task better. As VR technology gets better and becomes more affordable in the future, we are likely to see more applications.