Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 24 | Page 44

FEATURE: 2020: THE CIO’S PRIORITIES //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// organisations will look to pursue their ‘cloud- first’ strategies, adopting the cloud and its services. Because of this, having the ability to move to a cloud, from a cloud and back again will become more and more valuable.” Phil White, CTO at Scale Computing Martin Taylor, Deputy CEO and Co-Founder at Content Guru “Most Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology today relies on the cloud and makes decisions based on the collection of data that is stored in the cloud it is accessing. However, this can cause latency as data has to travel to data centres and then back to the device. For example, this can be problematic for self-driving cars, which ORGANISATIONS THAT STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE ARE SEEING HAPPY, LOYAL AND ENGAGED CUSTOMERS AND HIGHER PROFITS, BY TURNING AI HYPE INTO TANGIBLE BUSINESS SUCCESS. cannot wait for the round trip of data to know when to brake, or how fast to travel. “As a result of this, more organisations are turning to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and Edge Computing to capture data at the source of creation, specifically to support high-performance use cases, such as AI. The implementation of HCI and Edge Computing in AI will see the industry reduced form factors, since HCI allows for Steve Blow, Tech Evangelist at Zerto handled, at least partly, by AI. This is hardly surprising as around a quarter of customer interactions are already handled through an automated chatbot and the customer engagement technology sector is constantly expanding the very definition of what AI is and what it can do. As it becomes the key business differentiator, organisations that stay ahead of the curve are seeing happy, loyal and engaged customers and higher profits, by turning AI hype into tangible business success. Moving beyond the hype and towards result-driven applications of AI will be critical to the success of any company wanting to survive in this competitive landscape in 2020.” Steve Blow, Tech Evangelist at Zerto “In 2020, we will continue to see the adoption of cloud. As the old tech saying goes, ‘one cloud doesn’t fit all’, so I fully expect that businesses will continue to want more mobility and choice when it comes to their cloud. Microsoft and AWS will continue to go strong as more and more 44 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com