Achieving Real Business Outcomes from Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 3. Options and Trade-Offs for Enterprises to Consume Artificial Intelligence

In this chapter, we examine the options available to companies that want to use artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, which at this time include the following:

• Purchasing Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions

• Using public cloud–based APIs

• Developing custom AI algorithms

SaaS Solutions: Quick but Limited

Perhaps the simplest option for deploying AI within your organization is by taking advantage of SaaS analytics. These are prepackaged, turnkey solutions that are typically in the visual, assistive, or operations space. AI is also being deployed as a feature within existing SaaS offerings such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications.

One example is Everseen, a company that uses deep learning to mine video footage of point-of-sale transactions to detect irregularities. Affectiva operates similarly, deploying advanced video- and audio-mining algorithms to detect emotional patterns. Salesforce Einstein uses AI models to improve on prior-generation models for things like lead prioritization and personalization.

These platforms address real pain points and opportunities and, as such, can certainly create value for organizations, with the broader market for the platform reducing software development costs and driving feature innovation. However, they do have their downsides.

SaaS solutions tend to be a commodity. By design, they have limited configuration and are constricted ...