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In today’s digital landscape, having a “human-only” team running your tech is far behind the times. Without Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisting you in your analytics and decision making, you simply aren’t hitting the max potential for your team.
In this feature, I will look at a number of valuable AI use cases from Microsoft to Google, ranging from safety at the gas pump to tracking flooding in faraway places. We’re confident that AI will affect your business sometime in the near future. Businesses all over the world are harnessing business intelligence and AI to improve their operations and change lives.
Microsoft Leading the way with AI
AI Troubleshoots SQL Database Issue in One Day
In this Microsoft feature, a frustrated NewOrbit team searched for ways to optimize the background check process for more than 400,000 people each year. The NewOrbit team sought to discover the cause of a 6-month performance slump. While their fix had been to increase their Azure capacity by purchasing a higher tier, the solution didn’t have the desired effect. So, bring in Intelligent Insights, a new Azure feature. Intelligent Insights populated a number of effects to greater underlying problems, highlighted by an existing memory pressure in their databases. The simple fixes were patched and deployed within the day, and on the following report, there was a significant decrease in memory pressure. The New Orbit shifted away from a DevOps team to an AI solution thanks to the one-day solve. When asked about auto-tuning and troubleshooting the performance of the database, CTO Frans Lytzen cites the Intelligent Insights features within Azure.
“I have Azure for that.” – Frans Lytzen, CTO of NewOrbit
The marriage of the Azure SQL Database with the ever-evolving Microsoft Artificial Intelligence tools helped the NewOrbit team shift created a vast array of performance-enhancing capabilities for every business, from small- to mid-sized manufacturers to enterprise healthcare providers. AI is helping lead the way.
Not Saving You Money, Just Saving You at the Pump
If you haven’t seen the movie Zoolander, starring Ben Stiller, you should put it in your Netflix queue. **Spoiler Alert** In the movie, male model Derek Zoolander’s friends are at a gas station having a gasoline fight when one of them decides to spark a cigarette. Sadly, this comical scene is all too common. People are still smoking cigarettes near gas pumps – and AI is looking to solve the problem.
For the full details, check out the embedded video, but if you want my three-sentence take, here it is: Microsoft AI is using cameras to observe actions and trigger digital alerts when certain behaviors occur (like lighting a cigarette). The AI system flags this image and uploads to the cloud in real-time, where the more robust AI tools re-analyze and determine the best course of action. In theory, this new AI solution will create a solution that allows gas stations who can’t afford expensive AI tech a chance to save lives.
AI Bolsters Microsoft Teams’ Backgrounds
Addition by subtraction. That’s the goal of this AI innovation in the new Microsoft Teams set-up. The new feature is an AI-powered background blur. Rather than explain this marvel, I’ll simply drop this amazing Gif in here instead. Who couldn't use this feature in their meetings?
Google in the AI Game
Not to be left in the dark, Google is also pushing forward in the AI game. With a wide-reaching platform including Search and Maps, Google truly has a finger on the pulse. Here are a couple of Google AI examples.
Flood Warnings in India
While the coastal U.S. cities certainly understand flooding, the issue is far less severe here in Wisconsin than it is in India, a country often devastated with major floods. In order to help save lives, Google has trained its AI with historical river level data, as well as elevation and terrain data to help run real-time simulations to forecast location, timing, and severity of upcoming flood events. The alert system is still working through the kinks, but the initial accuracy has generated very promising results.
Knock Knock. AI knows ‘who’s there’ without Asking
A popular home security device – the Nest camera – does its job with the assistance of AI. The device is great for home security, and it’s no wonder why. The new AI detection features help let owners know whether someone is at your door, whether they’re bringing mail, cookies, caroling, or simply soliciting you to vote – you should by the way! – the Nest knows, courtesy of Google’s AI computer vision systems.
Independent Researchers Utilize AI
It’s not simply about big brands putting AI at the forefront of their marketing and PR efforts. Researchers around the world are rejoicing at the data analyzation ability of AI. What took humans hours of meticulous work now takes computers seconds. This is helping humans think deeper about nature’s best solutions and how to leverage those evolutionary concepts in modern technology.
Drones & Condors, Fliers of the Air Current
A group of researchers (based in California and Italy) have been making some strong strides forward in answering the question: how can we improve flight time of drones? The goal of their study, published in Nature magazine, was to analyze soaring birds’ use of thermal plumes in the atmosphere and to determine how birds both find these thermals and how to replicate the action in an autonomous drone glider. The end goal of the study is to use machine learning and AI to help a drone glider fly into updrafts. Unlike powered drones, gliders rely on updrafts to remain airborne, so the ability to find updrafts more quickly and navigate to them more efficiently is pivotal. This type of research can only be accomplished with AI, as the number of variables at play would be too time-consuming for people to calculate manually.
What we can Learn from Dolphins thanks to AI
Thanks to an advanced algorithm, powered by AI machine learning, researchers in the Gulf of Mexico are learning about our favorite marine mammals. The tech is able to sift through more than 52 million click noises in the Gulf. These echolocation clicks have been filtered through an unsupervised learning algorithm, and the results were astounding. AI has created various patterns to identify types of clicks – enabling scientists to determine specific patterns within millions of data points. The goal of this study was to monitor the marine impact of oil spills and climate change, and how the two effect dolphin populations’ movement and growth.
Anything else we should know about AI?
Yes. These things aren’t slowing down anytime soon. You should keep business intelligence tools and AI top of mind when you’re looking at your business from a strategic growth standpoint. How can the data you already collect be leveraged to improve operations and profitability? Can your team’s work be more efficient? Where can you use machine learning to improve your current strategies? Who should you talk to about the first two questions? That last one we can answer for you here – it’s us. You can talk to us.
At ITP, we’re working directly with the Microsoft team to optimize business for our clients. We’d be happy to talk about the possibilities of BI and AI with you directly. Simply contact us here >>>
Additional Content from the CEO
If you’d like to read more about my industry thoughts, check out my recent articles:
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- Digital Security Breaches: Facebook’s Present, Your Data’s Future – A deep dive into the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- Blockchain – What Even Is It? – A look at the rise of the tech behind Bitcoin.
