How do you build resiliency & thrive in the face of uncertainty?

Last week IBM hosted the Data and Artificial Intelligence forum, with many distinguished speakers and data and AI leaders.

The forum started off with a keynote on How to build resiliency and thrive in the face of uncertainty, the current pandemic has caused massive disruption for all business across the globe, with many turning to technology to solve the problems of uncertainty and help with the challenges of our ‘new normal’.

The pace of change in technology has been moving at an exponential rate for some time, but the pandemic has caused this period of technological hyper-acceleration – when we are experiencing years’ worth of advancement happening in months.

As Seth (IBM’s Chief AI Officer) commented in the keynote that 73% of AI projects end in failure, and those that are successful are intelligent composable businesses who act on data in real-time, you can view Seth’s keynote and insights here - Agenda | Data and AI Forum, UK and Ireland (bizzabo.com)

The keynote was followed by a number breakout sessions, I attended the session on Opening up your data to speed and scale digital transformation hosted by Jay (Director & Distinguished Engineer). Here are some observations from the session.

Sometimes it can seem we are in the AI Wild West, with AI happening everywhere, often uncontrolled and also often in silos.

The volume of data also continues to grow exponentially, and for many organisation data is their greatest asset, but often their data is locked away due to governance or regulation issues.

Of course AI is nothing without data, and data is far less valuable without AI – if you want to maximise value the two are inextricably linked.

This challenge will grow as we see the data science function expand into the business with the advent of ‘citizen data scientists’ – people in the business often close or owners of the data who are starting to use low code and no code tools ( like IBM’s AutoAI ) to extract valuable insights from their data, without actually being trained data scientists.

In the same way our data has been governed and regulated by GDPR and similar legislation – this will also come to Artificial Intelligence, those organisations that thrived through the recent data regulations and governance, were those who looked to consider and adopt their own governance before legislation or were early adopters, likewise organisations should be looking to consider the implications of AI regulations and governance now.

You can find out more about data governance here https://ibm.biz/BdfKvi

From time to time, IBM partners with industry thought leaders to share their opinions and insights on current technology trends. The opinions in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM.

?for more information on awaken AI you can find us here www.awakenai.org and find me on twitter @nigewillson