The Doppler Effect
I was just out of college when I started
to use artificial intelligence (AI) sys-
tems. I’d heard about it, including the
science fiction angle, but really did not
understand the power until I built sys-
tems using AI tech. Okay, and yikes,
that was over 30 years ago. So why did
AI not take off then? A better question
is: Why is it taking off now?
In a word: cloud. In the past, AI was too
processing intensive, and required a
data center full of servers to really get
the systems running at the pace they
needed. Thus, if businesses wanted to
leverage AI, they had to go all in for
several million dollars, and that was for
a single system. Moreover, for the
types of logical processes that most
businesses leverage during the first
generation of business automation, AI
was a bit of overkill at the time.
Today, any business can afford machine
learning or other AI services from
major cloud providers for hundreds of
dollars a month. Not only are these
services much cheaper and quicker to
implement, they are also light years
ahead in capabilities and the ability to
deliver business value.
As you’ll find in this edition of The Dop-
pler Quarterly, AI is about solving busi-
ness problems in novel ways. It
stretches across any organization from
innovation and R&D to IT and data sci-
ence. As we explore the power of AI
along with the power of cloud, we’re
finding new applications everyday, and
AI is finally paving its way within
businesses.
Of course Gartner analysts agree:
“By 2020, artificial intelligence will be a
priority for more than 30% of CIOs.”
“By 2021, 40% of new enterprise appli-
cations implemented by service pro-
viders will include artificial intelli-
gence technologies.”
“By 2018, digital business will require
50% fewer business process workers and
500% more key digital business jobs,
compared with traditional models”
Indeed, early adopters will gain a dis-
ruptive edge over competitors as they
drive the systemic and cultural shifts
that accompany more human and intu-
itive interactions with systems and
“things.” What does this mean? This
means that businesses new and old, big
and small, will be able to reinvent their
systems using AI and cloud computing,
and end up building a disruptive and
exploding business. We’ve heard the
Uber and AirBnB success stories, but we
really haven’t seen anything yet in terms
of innovation. We’re starting in 2017.
If you’ve not guessed yet, this edition of
The Doppler Quarterly explores
cloud-enabled artificial intelligence.
The good news is that the cloud and AI
are coupled, and thus it’s easy to use
and cost effective. The bad news is that
most people don’t yet understand AI,
including the use cases and how to
define business value. We hope that
reading this issue will change that.
David Linthicum
SVP, Cloud Technology Partners
SUMMER 2017 | THE DOPPLER | 1