People and AI: Better Together With Opnova.ai

A few months ago, I joined the Board of Directors of Opnova.ai, and today the company has finally come out of stealth, so now I can talk about it!? I am thrilled beyond measure to become the company's first independent director.

Opnova.ai is a game-changing entrant into what Gartner has named the "hyper-automation" sector, founded by the geniuses behind Fyde (now Barracuda CloudGen Access). It's well-funded and already has a viable product. It's also a company that I think would have greatly appealed to one of my Math Heroes, Lloyd Shapley. (I know...you're quickly Googling Lloyd Shapley...and you're probably seeing lots of info on his contribution to Game Theory. He also was slightly insulted when, as a renowned mathematician, he received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics for his analysis of matchmaking markets. And his dad was pretty famous for estimating the size of the Milky Way Galaxy. Definitely worthy of some additional Google research in all of your spare time.)

But what I want to talk about is a lesser-known but powerful idea that Shapley contributed to the world way back in the 1950's. This idea is so powerful that it's called the "Shapley Value".? Although you've likely never heard of it, you are probably very familiar with the idea behind it--an idea taught to us in Civics class and inscribed on our great monuments. An idea shared at every Veteran's funeral, and a concept taught in most corporate leadership courses. The Shapley Value, simply, provides a mathematical method for uniquely valuing the contribution of each individual to a group, where the value of the whole is calculated to be greater than the sum of its parts.?

I learned this concept back in school in the 1980's and, although it was presented to me as a social/team concept, I took the time, way back then, to learn the math associated with it. At that time, what I liked so much about this idea was that it is not just some fluffy, nebulous, touchy-feely concept. It may help with teamwork and interpersonal relations, but it is based on solid, mathematical proof.?

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable."? So often, deep in our brains, we are pretty sure that we can outshine and outperform our peers. We also may believe that the applications that we build and automate transcend our human potential to perform the same tasks. And indeed, each person has at least one unstoppable gift, and machine learning systems are improving many processes in every industry and sector. But the Shapley Value proves that the base value of our unique, individual gifts and applications is specifically and measurably increased when combined with others. We humans are better together than apart.?

And like all mathematical concepts, the Shapley Value ought to already apply to modern automation as well. The problem is, anyone who has used Siri to dictate a note to your kids, or your company's "chatbot" to request help with an IT issue, knows that, somehow, in spite of its promise, AI/ML often falls flat, especially when we try to work with it. Even the new Generative AI "hallucinates" at times!? So what's different about Opnova.ai??

In short, Opnova.ai allows you to seamlessly incorporate the experience, skill and unique methods of your human team members with the rich functionality of your current automation ecosystem to quickly and effectively up-level the results of your existing corporate services. You can focus on the handful of services that lead to the most re-work for your team members, or you can focus on one central process in a key platform that most of your employees or customers must use.

The result is a human-automation ecosystem that is better than the sum of its parts--better than your wonderful team members on their own, and better than your award-winning chatbot in isolation.

It's an idea whose time has come, and an opportunity for those of you who believe in both your people and your AI/ML to show the world that your company is greater than the sum of its parts!? We're better together--let's do this!