Why artificial intelligence can continue to transform industries

All industries have seen a rapid rise in business expectations related to AI implementation, coupled with the constant need to transform data into insights. In September 2021, the UK launched its first National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, a change in the country’s approach to the fastest-growing emerging technology in the world.

 

Artificial intelligence has been accelerating up the list of tech trends, and is expected to act as a force multiplier of digital business and innovation. And as IT increasingly adopts AI initiatives, business leaders are beginning to see the value in AI-enabled applications – such as AI-enhanced marketing initiatives focused on CX – and thus greater investment and commitment to it.

 

However, today’s IT teams will find it next to impossible to maintain, scale and govern production-grade AI pipelines. And this, coupled with the churn of complex, ever-changing data, will make it increasingly challenging for data, analytics and IT departments to respond quickly and accurately to business needs.

 

In recent years, leading European cloud provider Reply has expanded strongly in the realm of artificial intelligence. Reply started to build complementary skills and was successful in making them work together, which is what still distinguishes it from its competitors. It currently focuses on developing business models enabled through technologies such as AI, big data, cloud computing, digital media and the internet of things (IoT).

 

AI-powered tools

 

Reply has set up an observatory on AI-powered Software Development Tools to follow the evolution of AI, and test the technologies and products that implement it in the various stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC).

 

Reply uses a four-phase cycle (scouting, analysis, testing and consolidation) to refine its expertise within the evolving sectors. This has shown that there is a vast number of tools capable of disrupting the classic approach to each stage of the SDLC, such as AI-powered requirement management, project management, design, testing, ops and MLonCode.

 

Within 10 years we will have artificial intelligence for everything, just like we have a mobile app for everything today. And, like the explosion of the app phenomenon 15 years ago, now we are seeing a new evolution. Today’s apps can access information, read and publish data in an encrypted way. Tomorrow’s apps will be designed to interact seamlessly with all intelligent entities, using AI and the data independently.

 

Cloud AI

 

Reply is currently a cloud provider, but its fastest-growing area is in artificial intelligence. The company is well positioned and is moving into a fast-growing market. Companies that had already adopted flexible, cloud-based processes have faced these unprecedented times with greater confidence, while others raced to adopt cloud technologies to enable remote working.

 

Cloud-related technologies are the key to moving boldly on reacting and restarting activities. In fact, within the infrastructure market, it’s evident that cloud computing will rule both the Europe-5 and Big-5 clusters. As cloud-native development and infrastructure adoption increases, we can see this trend in hybrid multi-cloud strategies that connect public clouds to other public clouds and on-site workloads. Automation tools and cloud management platforms incorporating AI will tackle the challenge of managing complex multi-cloud environments.

 

Edge AI

 

Until now, artificial intelligence has largely relied on cloud computing, which offers virtually unlimited computational power: this is advantageous when it comes to training data-heavy AI models in a reasonable amount of time and making inferences with reduced latency. Executing artificial intelligence and machine learning directly on Edge devices paves the way for a new era of intelligent and autonomous things. Edge devices powered by AI have emerged as an alternative with its own benefits for organisations, including latency, capacity for more complex algorithms, and near real-time response. They are also a go-to option when data protection laws prevent storage of data within a cloud-centric service.

 

Reply has been applying Edge AI into diverse sectors – from retail, fintech, construction and autonomous automotive, to pharma, energy, manufacturing and financial services. It has implemented the technology in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and drones for businesses, enabling dangerous or difficult tasks. Edge AI has supported projects such as autonomous driving/testing, face covering recognition on public transport (which aided initial Covid-19 responses), and has also focused on IoT data collection for predictive maintenance and analysis of pain-points.

 

Reply and its specialised business units are continuously investing to make AI effective, working on the foundational layers which include MLOps, AI and data governance, as well as responsible AI. While single technologies and services are mature enough to be used, the challenges ahead for companies remain their integration in different contexts and the assurance of high-level quality outcomes. AI is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

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About Reply

 

Reply specialises in designing and implementing solutions based on new communication channels and digital media. As a network of highly specialised companies, Reply defines and develops business models supported by AI, big data, cloud computing, digital media and IoT. Reply provides consulting, system integration and digital services to organisations across telecom and media, industry and services, banking and insurance and the public sector.