Future Enterprise - The Intelligent Enterprise Revolution
by David Hunter Tow
Artificial intelligence support within the enterprise continues to expand, driven by the never-ending quest for global competitveness.
A number of AI techniques are rapidly reaching maturity and will be an essential component of the enterprise e-commerce and web intelligence revolution of the future.
AI has evolved from biological intelligence, which itself has evolved since the genesis of life on the planet. The most powerful of these techniques and those showing the most promise today include-
Evolutionary or genetic algorithms- modelled on the biological process of evolution. Selects for those systems with characteristics or traits best adapted to their environment- can be applied to most process design and optimisation problems.
Bayesian networks- graphical networks that provide decision support based on probability inferencing and learning- applied to reasoning and classification in evidence-based applications such as health, bioinformatics and the law.
Fuzzy Logic- allows for precise reasoning from qualitative liguistic variable values- mainly applied to control systems and pattern recognition in sensing systems.
Swarm Intelligence- combines multiple components to achieve emergent group intelligent behaviour, based on self organising principles- can be applied for example to coordinate large numbers of sensors or directed activities.
Neural networks- modelled on neural connections using weighted information inputs, threshold activation levels and performance feedback- applied primarily to pattern recognition applications.
Intelligent Agents- software programs designed to achieve a particular goal such as location or negotiation of a service- can learn by experience and act collaboratively in groups to achieve higher levels of intelligence, capable of making increasingly complex decisions autonomously- used to model the behaviour of large populations of interacting entities and simulate market and economic activities.
Four major trends are now emerging in relation to AI and the intelligent enterprise revolution.
First- AI is being incorporated into a much greater variety of e-commerce applications and at a more sophisticated level to achieve better quality decision outcomes.
Second- AI is moving rapidly up the chain of command from supporting operational and middle management decisions such as resource allocation, project and performance management, process control, workflow etc, to strategic and senior level management support- investment, marketing and governance planning.
Third- AI techniques are increasingly being used in more powerful combinations rather than merely standalone mode- for example linking genetic algorithms with Bayesian networks and software agents to optimise contract negotiation or auction strategies.
Fourth- artificial ntelligence is beginning to leverage on web intelligence. As the enterprise becomes more enmeshed in web service processing, its operations are also being enhanced through interaction with web-based social computing and search services, including social network and semantic Web 3.0 knowledge engineering applications.
Social sites for example now drive an increasing volume of traffic to e-tailers, by allowing users to express preferences, sharing recommendations and influence consumer’s purchasing decisions.
Future Trends
The enterprise of the future will increasingly depend on the wide range of rigorous artificial intelligence algorithms and methods outlined above, to drive its operations at all levels of management.
These techniques will continue to be enhanced and packaged in different combinations, to provide immensely powerful problem solving capability as well as integrating with the global intelligence of the Web 4.0.
As described in the previous Adaptable Enterprise blog, major decisions incorporating sophisticated levels of intelligent problem-solving will increasingly be applied autonomously and within real time constraints; in order to achieve the level of adaptability required to survive in an ever changing and uncertain global environment.
The real test will be whether human intelligence is capable of matching and actively participating in the future enterprise AI revolution.
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Featured Blogger David Hunter Tow
David's professional activities include business consulting, science communications, enterprise forecasting, and green advocacy.
Business Consulting: Director and Principal Consultant of The Australian Software Research Centre- a consultancy with over 30 years experience working with business and Government—specializing in the areas of Knowledge and Decision Engineering. Also author of the Decision Engineering Methodology—providing techniques for measuring and optimizing organizational decision processes.
Science Communication: Science communicator and author- production and presentation of a weekly community television series covering big picture science topics—'Theories of Everything'—across Australia and author of a major popular science book on evolution.
Enterprise Forecasting: Producer of a Blog/Feed tracking the future impact of the major processes and technologies driving the evolution of the enterprise
Green Advocacy: Development of a unique video Channel on social network- Facebook- providing access to green sustainable initiatives across the planet.
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