The Smart Products Pipeline – Using DevOps to roll out AI & ML applications

In the previous two posts in this series, we saw that created a connected product, is of itself no guarantee of creating a successful business stream. While connectivity can provide great customer experiences, this only leads to a sustainable product strategy if there is a continuous revenue stream behind the proposition, either directly from the customer, or indirectly through other parties. The key to generating this on-going revenue, and with it, long-term sustainability, is using the data collated by connected … Read more…

The Smart Products Playbook – Using data to create compelling experiences

In the previous post of this series, we explored ways by which recurring revenues can be obtained from connected products. In this post, we extend the investigation to Smart Products. Two questions immediately come to mind. When does a product become ‘smart’ rather than simply connected? And is does being smart really equate with being useful? Do smart products, which make use of some form of machine learning or another form of artificial intelligence capability, really help users? Equally of relevance, … Read more…

Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke on a panel at the IoT Tech Expo being held in London. The topic of the panel was “IoT and AI data analytics for intelligent decision making.” Combining two topics that are very hyped at the moment guaranteed a good attendance, but the question at the centre of the discussion was meaningful. Can Artificial Intelligence help improve decision making when faced with the morass of data produced by Internet of Things systems. Perhaps a … Read more…

Artificial Intelligence – Some highlights from 2016

2016 has been a big year for Artificial Intelligence. Taking over from the Internet of Things as “Most Talked About Tech of The Year”, this represents a set of technologies that will clearly have significant  long-term implications for how we work, buy products and consume services. This explosion is made possible by the convergence of three trends: The massive growth in data availability in every field of human endeavour, a renewed interest in the algorithms underpinning artificial intelligence, and the plummeting cost … Read more…

What’s behind Musk’s OpenAI Initiative?

For my first blog post of 2016, I thought it time to take a cursory look at OpenAI, the non-for-profit organisation being set up by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. This aims to provide a non-commercial basis for furthering research into Artificial Intelligence, publishing and widely disseminating the output of research carried. To this end, $1 billion worth of funding has been pledged (or ‘donated’) by a number of Silicon Valley luminaries, including PayPal’s Peter Thiel and Y Combinator’s Sam Altman. Silicon Valley … Read more…

Bringing Artificial Intelligence to the Internet of Things – with the help of the Cloud

We have already touched on the role that machine learning and artificial intelligence plays in building smart systems that provide value to customers and companies. From predicting when elevators will require maintenance and service to the advanced voice control functions used in iPhones, artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. This blog however has not yet done justice to the extent to which the entry bar has been lowered for advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to be incorporated into … Read more…

Big data predictions in the online and physical world

One piece of news that hit the headlines this week was the revelation from researchers from the University of Cambridge and Stanford University that Facebook may be a better judge of personalities than spouses or friends. Apart from the obvious hype value this is particularly significant as it shows the power of machine learning in scenarios which we intuitively feel should be difficult for algorithms to handle. Instead it turns out the the inherent lack of subjective bias and prejudice … Read more…