Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Girish Mysore, CTO, Zinier
Automation Gets Smarter and Easier in 2020
Conversations around artificial intelligence have dominated the
tech industry for the past few years. This focus won't change in 2020, but AI
and automation will evolve in a few ways that may seem small, but will have a
big impact on how the technology will be used in the long term. AI will be
reshaped by the rise of small data sets, contextual learning, advanced
automation and the trend of algorithms being sold instead of apps. Ultimately,
these changes will make AI and automation easier to leverage and more valuable
to end users.
- Small
data gets big - Going forward, we'll no longer require
massive big data sets to train AI algorithms. In the past, data scientists
have always needed large amounts of data to perform accurate inferences
with AI models. Advances in AI are allowing us to achieve similar results
with far less data.
- Rise
of contextual learning - AI will gain significant contextual
learning capabilities in 2020. Consider a common AI use case like
surveillance analytics. Today, AI can readily identify a person's face, a
license plate, landmarks, etc. But it has trouble placing that information
in its given context. For example, is there an altercation occurring? Is a
car swerving between lanes and the driver impaired? Does a building need
repairs? Vendors will be focused on providing such contextual learning
capabilities to achieve smarter AI and deliver greater value.
- Automation
finally gets automatic - Automation at its core is still very
manual. Most automation is simply derived from a manual process, such as
automatic software commands. True automation means embedding real
intelligence. That is, building systems that can actually make complex
decisions rather than simply following pre-defined instructions based on
input data. AI will gain more of this intelligence and become truly
automatic.
- Algorithms
over apps
- In 2020, companies will focus less on shipping traditional applications
and focus more on selling AI use cases. They'll offer customers AI
models for a specific use case (i.e. diagnosing repair needs in 5G
infrastructure) and separate models for a different use case (i.e. determining
when oil and gas infrastructure needs to be retired). Organizations will
rely less on one-size-fits-all apps and instead leverage highly
specialized models for custom use cases, which will ultimately deliver
better results.
AI is already transforming entire industries, but some challenges
have slowed adoption in certain instances. These trends will mitigate those
challenges and accelerate the transition to a truly automated, AI-driven world.
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About the Author
Girish is a technology evangelist and inventor with a bachelor's
degree in computer science and an MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business.
An accomplished software professional, Girish has over 20 years of industry
experience focusing on product research and development, new product strategy
and execution, and project management.