The era of Cognitive Systems
The year 2017 will bring in a transformational change in the way businesses look at Analytics. In this blog, Sagar Anisingaraju, Saama’s Chief Strategy Officer, says the year 2017 will mark the dawn of the era of Cognitive Systems wherein he highlights the key industry trends. This tactical shift, he mentions, will be marked by organizations focusing on business outcomes, moving towards predictive analytics, BOT-ification of analytics, evolving the way we interact on social media, aiding buying and upselling and introducing new business models.
The promised land of outcomes from Analytics appears to be round the corner. 2016 was a strong year with several advances specifically around artificial intelligence (AI) becoming mainstream. What are we going to see in 2017?
#1 Analytics as the Process Driver
With AI coming of age in a practical way, the role of analytics is poised to dramatically change. Instead of being ‘diagnostic’, in improving the performance or efficiency of the existing processes, enterprises will rely increasingly on analytics to predictively drive what processes are needed to begin with! This is a monumental change – Smart businesses will rely on analytics not just to measure what they do, but also to drive and change their business functions in meaningful ways. Specific intervention programs influencing business processes will be spearheaded by the results of these predictive outcomes. A significant number of businesses will make the move from Big Data ‘use cases’ to ‘Business Outcomes’ as a competitive advantage.
#2 Rise of the BOTs
Big data driven analytics are already seamlessly integrating into mainstream everyday user experiences. Complexity of data and insights from data using Machine Learning will become byte sized and will be made actionable as ‘analytic bots’. Mobile devices will be the last mile with this BOT-ification of analytics. Consumers are transparently leveraging the power of advanced analytics for making their daily lives more productive and engaging, and this trend will accelerate to incorporate most human experience. For example, we will become increasingly dependent on predictive recommendations interconnecting weather, traffic, friends, events, preferences and behaviors to drive our daily activities. Enterprises will bring unprecedented efficiencies with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Analytics will drive… well, US!
#3 Analytics providing a point of view
Collaboration and social media tools will see newer horizons opening up for them. Existing tools will evolve and newer collaboration frontiers will emerge. These will not be limited to just sharing photos, videos and conversations. Analytics features will be able to ‘interpret’ data exchanges and add to the conversation. Thanks to Machine learning and real time processing, we will see an era of machine generated content that makes sense ‘in the moment’. Computers will not just be the medium for collaboration and interaction, but increasingly they will supplement a ‘point of view’! Virtual assistants will become embedded in our day to day collaboration tools. For example, specialized machine learning analytic algorithms will be able to inject new and original content into a conversation by analyzing the human exchanges and adding facts and analogies to the flavor of the discussion. I.e. our machines will help us have richer conversations with our friends!
#4 Analytics driving commerce and consumption
Big Data analytics will blur the boundaries among consumption and commerce. Thanks to machine learning, we will see tools emerging that would make buying and upselling a contextual part of our lives. For example, when you are at the last pages of your Martian book on Kindle, Netflix will send you a link for watching the movie, with a coupon to your favorite pizza. Big data and its interpretation will make commerce a natural extension of your activity than a separate chore to complete.
#5 Democratization of Analytics
Computational speeds, low cost storage, machine learning and other technology disruptions are driving Analytics as a truly level playing field. The wave of democratized power of Analytics is opening up new business models and usurping market share from slow-mover incumbents faster than ever possible before.
The era of Cognitive Systems is set to take over the world as we know it. We need to understand how to make it work for us, or it will leave us behind in the dusty heap of history.
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