Deliverable 1 - White Paper on Artificial Intelligence

Businesses need intelligence to make informed decisions. With the phrases, Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, being frequently used people get them confused and think they are the same. These two types of intelligence are very different but can be related when used to make decisions.

Business intelligence (BI) is a very broad term that refers to technologies, applications and practices for collecting, integrating, analyzing, and presenting  business  information. The goal of the analysis is to aid in decision-making.

Artificial intelligence (AI) uses technology to replicate the problem-solving, learning, intuition, and judgement of humans. This technology is typically applications on a computer system that provides facial recognition, voice recognition, task automation, and many other “human” like tasks. By replicating human intelligence, AI leaves much more time for tasks that require human interaction. AI can be divided into machine learning and deep learning.

One of the main differences between AI and BI is the goals of technology. The purpose of BI is to improve a business’s data collection, storage, analysis, and reporting. Reporting could include much more than lines of numbers on a page. It could consist of visuals like charts, graphs, and dashboards.

The goal of AI is to create models of human “thinking”. These models seek to replicate human thoughts and reactions. Data gathered in AI is used by the computer to make decisions. Much of the data collected by AI is captured via sensors. These sensors can come in many forms. Cameras, thermostats, motion sensors, and weight sensors are just some of the sensors used to capture data for AI. The response time must be very quick so the data from the sensors can trigger actions from the AI computer application.

The process comparisons of BI and AI:

The goals of both types of intelligence show that artificial intelligence could be used to enhance and extend business intelligence. Artificial intelligence can take the data gathered by BI and create predictions and reactions for the future. BI looks at past data and uses this information to understand how the business has performed. Understanding where the business has previously succeeded or failed is critical to improving the processes. The power of AI allows us to use computers to predict what the business might face in the future and prepare. The two used together in business are very powerful.

Another of the main differences between AI and BI are the tools used in each.

The tools used in BI include:

· SAS

· Python

· R

· Power BI

· Pentaho Data Warehouse

· SQL

· Tableau

The tools used in BI are typically applications that mine the data, store the data, or analyze the data. Some of these applications can be easy to learn and use, while others require extensive training.

The tools used in AI are much more complicated and require extensive processing power. Many businesses may lack the hardware required for this processing power. Cloud-based tools can provide processing power that may not exist on-site. Remember, AI goes beyond analysis to the response. This response needs to be very fast. Some of the tools used in AI include:

· Amazon (AWS) Machine Learning

· The Analyst Toolbox (AI-One)

· Deeplearning4j (Deep Learning for Java)

· Apache Mahout

· OpenNN (open source AI code)

In summary

· AI and BI have different goals

· AI can enhance BI

· The tools used in AI and BI are very different

· BI is focused on the past while AI is focused on the future

Business Intelligence: Dashboard

Rami logs onto a company dashboard to check Key Performance Indicators for his sales department such as the number of calls taken by the call center reps, and the sales contracts logged by each team member. From this dashboard, he can read bar charts and line graphs that answer important business questions for his team quickly.

Business Intelligence: Automation

Angela owns a meal kit delivery service for people on one of 5 popular diets. She was spending 10-20 hours a week conducting marketing research and analysis. Business Information tools allowed Angela to automate marketing reports and create customer personas that are updated in real time. She can target the meal plans to the target consumers based on these representative customers quickly.

Artificial Intelligence - Scenario 1

Matteo works in Madrid, Prague, Berlin, and Chicago. He speaks English and Spanish fluently but uses an advanced program to translate his speech into German and Czech in real time. Clients speak in their preferred language and the AI translates this into English or Spanish for Matteo. Because his work is sensitive and must be confidential, Matteo's laptop and phone are protected by voice recognition. He says preset phrases and the devices open.

Artificial Intelligence - Scenario 2

Serena manages a production line for an appliance manufacturing company. One product, an espresso machine, has a known common defect which was difficult to detect with the human eye. Checking each machine manually required time and people, both of which are costly. AI devices scan the espresso machines for the error and sound an alarm when the defect is detected. This has reduced the number of defective machines that make it to customers by 80%.