This article has been contributed by Ms. Karunya Sampath, Co-founder & CEO of Payoda Technologies.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, there is always a fear of missing out. However, AI is here to stay. The notion of AI has expanded so much over time that you may already be using it in your organization without even realizing it! 

A decade ago, software was considered intelligent if it could send reminders or provide monthly reports. Automating complex workflows and if-else functions was so astounding that we labelled it intelligent. How clever! 

Nowadays, AI has now gone beyond that. This article will discuss AI tech stacks and how to use them strategically and efficiently for your business operations.

Understanding the AI Technology Stack for Your Business
How the Modern AI Stack Came to Be and Its Current Relevance
Enterprises Are Focusing More on These Modern AI Tech Stack Components

Understanding the AI Technology Stack for Your Business

Various technologies are used for specific goals, including information management, storage, processing, and intelligent algorithms. The AI tech stack categorizes them into layers for more straightforward perception. Your AI tech stack is a collection of technologies, frameworks, and tools that address various aspects of AI implementation, from data collection to deploying AI-powered products.

Your AI tech stack has three layers: application, model, and infrastructure. Let's look at each layer in depth.

The Application Layer

The Application Layer depicts user experience with features ranging from web applications to REST APIs that control data flow between client- and server-side environments. This layer is responsible for critical processes such as gathering inputs via GUIs, displaying visualizations on dashboards, and giving data-driven insights via API endpoints. React for the front end and Django for the back end are frequently used, with each picked for its benefits in tasks such as data validation, user authentication, and API request routing. The Application Layer serves as a gateway, routing user requests to the underlying machine-learning models while adhering to strict security protocols to ensure data integrity.

The Model Layer

For data processing and decision-making, the Model Layer serves as the engine room. TensorFlow and PyTorch are specialized libraries providing a diverse toolkit for machine learning operations such as natural language processing, computer vision, and predictive analytics. It involves feature engineering, model training, and hyperparameter optimization. Different machine learning techniques are evaluated using performance metrics, such as precision, recall, and F1-score. This layer receives data from the Application Layer, performs computations, and returns insights. The Infrastructure Layer provides resources.

The Infrastructure Layer

The Infrastructure Layer is essential for model training and inference. This layer assigns and manages computational resources like CPUs, GPUs, and TPUs. Scalability, latency, and fault tolerance are engineered at this level with orchestration technologies such as Kubernetes for container management.

Cloud services like AWS's EC2 instances and Azure's AI-specific accelerators are used to handle intensive computing. These services aren't just passive recipients of requests. They're dynamic entities that deploy resources wisely.

How the Modern AI Stack Came to Be and Its Current Relevance

Modern AI Stack aims to bring together the most excellent tools and approaches in one place to serve as a reference for:

AI leaders like managers, directors, VPs, and CTOs might learn more about new technologies/integrations and guide their teams toward the current AI stack.

ML Engineers and Data Scientists can discover new technologies by comparing them with their current stack. It will allow for optimizing business operations and staying ahead of the curve.

While it has grown dramatically, many organizations continue to find it challenging to keep up with the rapid evolution of the ML stack. Let's dig deeper into where the current market is focusing on.

Enterprises Are Focusing More on These Modern AI Tech Stack Components

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are built with multiple modules focusing on specific tasks but working together to ensure overall operation. This complicated stack of technologies is critical for creating AI capabilities, from data input to final application. The Open AI technology stack includes the following components:

Data Storage and Organization

The first step in AI processing is to store data safely and efficiently. Storage solutions such as SQL databases for structured data and NoSQL databases for unstructured data are essential. Big Data solutions, such as Hadoop's HDFS and Spark's in-memory processing, are necessary for large-scale data analysis. The storage type directly impacts the speed of information retrieval, which is crucial for real-time data analytics and machine learning.

Cloud and Scalable Infrastructure

The entire AI technology stack is typically run on a cloud-based infrastructure such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure. These systems provide scalable, on-demand computational resources for data storage, processing speed, and algorithmic execution. The cloud architecture enables seamless and harmonious operation of all the above components.

Natural Language Processing and Sentiment Analysis

NLP libraries, such as NLTK and spaCy, are the foundation for understanding human language. Transformer-based models, such as GPT-4 and BERT, improve understanding and context recognition in complicated applications like sentiment analysis. These NLP tools and models are frequently added to the AI stack after deep learning components for applications requiring natural language interaction.

Visual Data Interpretation and Recognition

Visual data requires computer vision technology such as OpenCV. CNNs can be employed in advanced facial recognition and item identification applications. These computer vision components commonly use machine learning approaches to improve multimodal information analysis.

Final Thoughts

As AI practitioners test and reap the benefits of the modern AI stack, new tools are being developed to meet demand. While numerous technologies are available to help you create a comprehensive AI stack, you must first complete three steps.

Is the investment in the tool much less than the cost of developing its capabilities from scratch? 

Is the tool simple to learn and use, with dependable customer support? Is the tool flexible enough to accommodate additional features beyond the fundamental requirements? 

Once the fundamental prerequisites have been met, other factors such as ease of use, platform infrastructure-agnostic setup, no or low code capabilities, and
so on might be considered.