Brands don't need data scientists, AI is the next 'big data'

By Karthik Sridhar, CEO, DATACULTURE
Readers of this newspaper and other publications will remember a time when Big Data was heralded as a ground breaking phenomenon that would change everything. We were shown dreams of a near-future in which a brand would know its consumers so well, it would predict when they'd want a new TV and have offers ready for them...We watched and nothing happened. According to a C5 Insight Study, 30 per cent of all big data based CRM deployments failed in 2014. Gartner predicts that over 60 per cent of Big Data projects will fail to go beyond pilots.

Largely Artificial

As with Big Data, claims of Artificial Intelligence and its true applicability have a fair distance to cover. If it took Big Data nearly 12 years to close the gap between concept and real world applicability, it doesn't make sense to say Artificial Intelligence is here already. However, many forward thinking brands have thrown their hat in the ring. BMW's iGenius technology educates customers of the i-Series through text. But brands don't realise what's being presented to them as AI is really the value through deep automation that Big Data was supposed to (and now can) deliver.

A Brand's ROI on AI

AI, in its current form, is a boon to consumers. You've used Apple's Siri, Google Now, seen or heard of Amazon Alexa, and (should) know all about Google's self-driving car. IBM's Watson is allowing doctors to do medical research and novices to cook palatable food. In India, TCS claims to have built an AI engine, although we don't know how many engineers will finally work on it. An Indian startup, MadStreetDen, is building AI technology stacks that will help consumers make better choices by just taking a picture of something they like. This kind of marginally improved machine intelligence (MIMI) may be unproven and lurking around in the fringes today, but it will get mainstream status real soon.

Artificially Intelligent Future

While the gap between human intelligence and machine intelligence will narrow, it will still remain, like it does between humans and chimps. Let's face it, chimps cannot build a car or an iPhone app. Artificial Intelligence will definitely be smarter than people who own and run it, but it will always be guided by directions provided by humans. Brand managers would still need to think like behavioural economists and not like data scientists.