For most people, the term artificial intelligence (AI) immediately conjures up images of a robot vacuum cleaner in the corner of a room, waiting for you to summon it with a "hello" or "hey".
This scenario serves as a prime example of how artificial intelligence terminology can be used to describe a wide range of applications, from virtual assistants that turn on room lights to the processing and analysis of data points. However, while AI is celebrated for its ability to help home users accomplish mundane tasks, enterprise AI is rapidly becoming a major part of the technology stack.
Since the turn of the millennium, countless companies have been established to provide businesses with actionable data and inform their future. One such example is the use of data to decipher which conditions stimulated employees' highest productivity levels in the wake of the recent pandemic, thereby planning a company's hybrid work policies.
Control everything
These data points can be categorized as nodes on the Internet of Things (IoT). However, I do not recommend referring to any employee as a "thing."
Regardless, businesses need to start viewing each network connection as a point from which to extract data and analyze it in order to gain actionable insights. While employees may be a somewhat outlier example, sensors, cameras, and microphones in meeting rooms are smart enough to extract data for analysis and improvement.
According to a study released by Cision in August, the global market for IoT and AI will reach $21.7 billion by 2026, indicating that opportunities are right in front of businesses.
A market of this size is bound to be dominated by service providers, and those companies that take on the challenge and partner with these providers will succeed.
By developing strategies around connected devices and the data being captured, businesses can make new decisions or recommendations based on the new information received.
The Coming Internet of Things Revolution
For many business leaders, the Internet of Things (IoT) may be a daunting concept. However, the vision of summoning robot baristas and drone delivery packages needs to be embraced.
This is because every connected device collects usable data. For example, you can imagine that the only sensor on a streetlight is an ambient light sensor. However, data extracted from the most familiar street fixtures can track the busiest times of the street, free parking spaces, weather patterns, and pedestrian routes in specific areas, among other things.
This is the level of data capture that businesses need to leverage. According to Statista, by 2025, more than 75 billion connected devices will be installed globally, each extracting data at speeds we've never seen before.
However, without the right artificial intelligence and real-time analytics, this data cannot be fully utilized. Over the past decade, we have seen how data has been used to predict rising temperatures or manipulated to influence votes.
Over the next decade, IoT use cases will explode, enabling the next generation of developers to extract data that they can leverage, analyze, and understand the information these devices provide. Companies will need to develop new global data center strategies specifically for sensor data and other automatically generated machine data.
The advent of 5G—with its higher speeds, lower latency, and mature network infrastructure—has also led to an increase in network edge devices, enabling fundamental analytics to accelerate the delivery of these actionable insights—and has also driven the shift from the cloud to the edge.
In such a huge market, there are many areas where efforts can be made. For example, the enterprise market is already crowded with analytics providers looking to provide businesses with the data they need for future office design, but in an underserved market, there will always be gaps.
In fact, the data revolution and the opportunities it presents are only just beginning. This creates an entirely new market for businesses to profit from. But those companies wishing to participate need to embrace change now, and in turn, they will experience new opportunities and new growth.
