AI Accountability Continues to Rise

Good piece with link to detailed Forrester study:

AI Accountability: Proceed at Your Own Risk
A new report suggests that to improve AI accountability, enterprises should tackle third-party risk head-on.

A report issued by technology research firm Forrester:   AI Aspirants: Caveat Emptor , highlights the growing need for third-party accountability in artificial intelligence tools.

The report found that a lack of accountability in AI can result in regulatory fines, brand damage, and lost customers, all of which can be avoided by performing third-party due diligence and adhering to emerging best practices for responsible AI development and deployment.

The risks of getting AI wrong are real and, unfortunately, they're not always directly within the enterprise's control, the report observed. "Risk assessment in the AI context is complicated by a vast supply chain of components with potentially nonlinear and untraceable effects on the output of the AI system," it stated.

Most enterprises partner with third parties to create and deploy AI systems because they don’t have the necessary technology and skills in house to perform these tasks on their own, said report author Brandon Purcell, a Forrester principal analyst who covers customer analytics and artificial intelligence issues. "Problems can occur when enterprises fail to fully understand the many moving pieces that make up the AI supply chain. Incorrectly labeled data or incomplete data can lead to harmful bias, compliance issues, and even safety issues in the case of autonomous vehicles and robotics," Purcell noted.  .... "

Requirements for Smart Manufacturing

Good overview out of Forrester, which links to further resources.

Smart Manufacturing Requires A Range Of Technologies To Succeed
CIO | Forrester Blogs   by Paul Miller

Principal Analyst Paul Miller introduces The Forrester Tech Tide™: Smart Manufacturing, Q2 2020, and highlights a webinar that will dive more deeply into the research and its findings.
As manufacturing becomes connected, digital and smart, manufacturers find themselves grappling with unfamiliar technologies. In the Forrester Tech Tide™: Smart Manufacturing, Q2 2020, we highlight 20 significant technologies. The report offers clients advice on whether they should experiment with, invest in, maintain, or divest from each of these.

I will be running a webinar on 20 May, during which I will discuss the rationale for the report’s recommendations and take questions from participants. Please do join us.

A set of reports later in 2020 will dive more deeply into a number of the technologies flagged for experimentation or investment. Clients can always see my current research plan at the bottom of this page, or discuss it with their account manager   ... " 

Reminder: Talk Today: Mixed integer Programming and Machine Learning

Highly recommended!   We used Mixed Integer Programming optimization methods for many years in the enterprise.   Especially for complex combinatorial decision making.  Nice to see this upcoming Webinar presenting it as complimentary to Machine Learning (ML), for helping with related decisions.  Always better to get analytics closer to the actual decision.  I will be attending.

Title: Mathematical Optimization + ML: Featuring Forrester Survey Insights

Date: 9/17/2019  Time: 9:00 AM PDT  Duration: 60 Minutes

Overview:Mathematical optimization (AKA Mixed Integer Programming) and Machine Learning (ML) are different but complementary technologies. Simply put – Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) answers questions that ML cannot. Machine learning makes predictions while MIP makes decisions. For Data Scientists to be effective, an understanding of MIP and when to use it is critical, as ML does not solve all problems effectively.

In this latest Data Science Central webinar, you will hear the results of the 2019 Mathematical Optimization Survey commissioned by Gurobi Optimization and conducted by Forrester and insights on how Data Scientists can use tools such as MIP to make complex decisions.

You’ll learn:- The latest trends in ML and Artificial Intelligence
- Key findings from the Mathematical Optimization Survey
- How you can use MIP in concert with ML techniques
- How industries are using MIP today to efficiently use resources, often resulting in time savings and millions of dollars in cost savings

All registrants will receive a copy of the 2019 Mathematical Optimization Study available in October 2019.

Speakers: Mike Gualtieri, VP Principal Analyst, Application Development and Delivery Professionals - Forrester Research
Edward Rothberg, CEO and Co-Founder - Gurobi Optimization

Hosted by: Stephanie Glen, Editorial Director - Data Science Central
Not registered for the Mathematical Optimization + ML: Featuring Forrester Survey Insights webinar and interested in signing up? Click below:

REGISTER NOW! https://onlinexperiences.com/Launch/QReg.htm?ShowKey=73521

Talk:   [ to be inserted here ]

See also:  https://www.datasciencecentral.com/video/dsc-webinar-series-adding-optimization-to-your-analytics-toolbox  

Webinar: Mixed Integer Programming plus Machine Learning

Highly recommended!   We used Mixed Integer Programming optimization methods for many years in the enterprise.  Used it every day to solve tough problems.  It was our horse for optimization problems.   Especially for complex combinatorial decisions.  Nice to see this upcoming Webinar as presenting it as complimentary to Machine Learning (ML).   Then ML can be used to directly make key resulting decisions!   Always better to get closer to the decision.  I will be attending.

Title: Mathematical Optimization + ML: Featuring Forrester Survey Insights
Date: 9/17/2019
Time: 9:00 AM PDT
Duration: 60 Minutes

Overview:
Mathematical optimization (AKA Mixed Integer Programming) and Machine Learning (ML) are different but complementary technologies. Simply put – Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) answers questions that ML cannot. Machine learning makes predictions while MIP makes decisions. For Data Scientists to be effective, an understanding of MIP and when to use it is critical, as ML does not solve all problems effectively.

In this latest Data Science Central webinar, you will hear the results of the 2019 Mathematical Optimization Survey commissioned by Gurobi and conducted by Forrester and insights on how Data Scientists can use tools such as MIP to make complex decisions.

You’ll learn:
- The latest trends in ML and Artificial Intelligence
- Key findings from the Mathematical Optimization Survey
- How you can use MIP in concert with ML techniques
- How industries are using MIP today to efficiently use resources, often resulting in time savings and millions of dollars in cost savings

All registrants will receive a copy of the 2019 Mathematical Optimization Study available in October 2019.

Speakers: 
Mike Gualtieri, VP Principal Analyst, Application Development and Delivery Professionals - Forrester Research
Edward Rothberg, CEO and Co-Founder - Gurobi Optimization

Hosted by: 
Stephanie Glen, Editorial Director - Data Science Central
Not registered for the Mathematical Optimization + ML: Featuring Forrester Survey Insights webinar and interested in signing up? Click below:

REGISTER NOW! 
https://onlinexperiences.com/Launch/QReg.htm?ShowKey=73521

Forrester on Value of Blockchain for the Supply Chain

High level overview of value of blockchains and link to a video:

Blockchain and Supply Chain
George Lawrie, Vice President, Principal Analyst
Martha Bennett, Principal Analyst

Modern supply chains are faster, more dynamic, and more volatile than ever before. The digital economy thrives on scouring the globe for new markets and new sources of supply.  Furthermore, agile supply networks outpace rigid supply chains, anticipating demand from empowered customers. But in contrast with rigid legacy supply chains, binding known and trusted vendors,  an agile network of temporary suppliers,  might damage customer experience, by concealing the origin and characteristics of components or ingredients. Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies can help,  by increasing visibility of supply chain documentation. They can reduce inspections, boost trade credit,  and build trust even with new, or temporary, suppliers. .... " 

New Retail is Here

Good piece in Forrester on Retail in China that sums up and charts progress in China

Future of Retail is Here   Xiaofeng Wang, Senior Analyst  Forrester

The future of retail is already here: Alibaba’s New Retail is reshaping the retail landscape in China and beyond. JD.com, Tencent, and traditional retailers like Starbucks and Walmart are all jumping on the bandwagon. My latest report, New Retail Is Transforming Commerce, shows retailers what they can learn from early adopters and how they can accelerate their omnichannel transformation.

eCommerce has tremendous momentum in China: As a percentage of total retail sales, online retail sales have risen from less than 2% in 2009 to nearly 25% in 2018. However, offline retail still takes the lion’s share and will remain the key growth engine for Alibaba and JD. As the first to recognize the trend, Alibaba responded with New Retail (a term coined by Jack Ma), its strategy to redefine commerce by blending online and offline ecosystems to create seamless customer experiences and improve retail efficiency. Alibaba’s New Retail models are transforming key retail sectors:... "

Forrester Talks Digital Twins

Forrester pitches an expensive report below.   Worth a look.  Algorithms are interesting, but like with the term AI what they mean is usually more limited.  They work well in narrow domains for specific goals.  They do not mean they are intelligent nor are they even close to a 'Twin' of how we behave.  The term, like 'intelligence' can be used as a useful, broad description of a cognitive model of human capabilities.  It can replace some things that people do, but not all of them.  Again, beware the marketing.   Twin as a filter I like, so use the term filter.

The Algorithm Of You    By Fatemeh Khatibloo   Principal Analyst Forrester

Algorithm. It’s a buzzword you hear frequently these days. But does the average consumer understand the impact algorithms have on her life? Absolutely not. Consumers enjoy the illusion of unlimited choice in products, services, and content, but there’s almost always an algorithm behind the curtain, constantly refining and defining what’s presented to her.

Like it or not, we’re in the age of the algorithm.

Unfortunately, many businesses lost consideration for the human amidst the ceaseless data ingestion and optimization of these algorithms, and that’s led to negative outcomes for real people. While some governments are enacting regulation, we don’t think that solves the technology and ethics problem. Rather, we envision a new approach that puts the tools for data control in the hands of people and turns the tide of the impending “algopocalypse.”

In my latest report, “The Algorithm Of You: Meet Your Personal Digital Twin,” I introduce the concept of a personal digital twin (PDT), which I’ve defined as:

An algorithm owned by an individual, optimized for his or her personal objectives. It filters content that is counterproductive to the individual’s goals and identifies opportunities that support achieving them.

PDTs will eventually function as a digital proxy for each of us — they will learn what we value, what we prefer, and how we make decisions. We’ll be able to optimize them for hyperpersonalization, or serendipity. And as we do, the benefits will abound for the organizations we do business with. They’ll finally be able to:

Reach the right level of customer obsession.
Reduce marketing spending waste.
Optimize customer lifetime value.
Protect their brands from costly privacy and security missteps.
Build relationships with customers who actually want a relationship with them.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to reach out to me via inquiry or on Twitter!  ... "

Forrester on AI in Retail

Could not agree more, its not about things like image recognition. Its first about automating business process with deep and transparent data.   And insert the pattern recognition if you need it. 

AI In Retail? Nope — Start With Automation
Rob Koplowitz Vice President, Principal Analyst
Sucharita Kodali Vice President, Principal Analyst

Stories of thrilling, new AI use cases in retail have been popping up in our tech news feeds, whether computer vision, facial recognition, or elimination of human workers. But these sensational accounts miss an important piece of the AI learning curve. A complex infrastructure of end-to-end process automation underpins the flashy technology reflected on the front end.

Process gaps shatter customer journeys and lead to a lack of transparency in supply chain and customer interactions, which together form a composite of the AI backbone. If your retail organization suffers from process gaps and manual routing — and 37% of business and technology decision makers report that they are — you must start with laying the groundwork before leaping to AI bling.  ... "

Convergence of Analytics Products, Services

Below contains a link to a complimentary report. Inescapable direction.  Few would buy a single capability.

Continued Convergence Of Analytics Products And Services

By Boris Evelson,  Vice President, Principal Analyst
I’ve been watching this trend with great curiosity (first wrote about it in 2007).

On the one hand, software product vendors are slowly but surely migrating from just selling products to selling solutions. And solutions always require professional services. IBM led the trend when it acquired PwC in 2002. For the last few years GoodData has also been concentrating on building embedded BI solutions with a strong emphasis on professional services. Most recently MicroStrategy (and I hope other BI/analytics/big data vendors will follow soon) made a significant investment into its management consulting capabilities hiring hundreds of consultants and coming out with a “BI/analytics maturity assessment” service offering – formerly solely the realm of management consultants.  80% of BI projects success depends on people/process part of the equation and that’s why strong management consulting capabilities are key. .... " 

Beating Amazon

Forrester Blogs The Counterintuitive CEO

How To Beat Amazon  By George Colony   CEO  ... 

Amazon has an Achilles’ heel: emotion. The company delivers, but its customers don’t feel empathy for the brand. This vulnerability offers a path to stealing parts of the behemoth’s business.

Every year, Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) rates 600 brands around the world. Among US online retailers, Amazon has sunk from seventh place in 2015 to ninth place in 2016 to 12th place (out of 14 brands) in 2017. What’s going on?

Consumers perceive Amazon to be a good convenience shopping site that lacks a personal connection. It scores well on “fast shipping,” “easy transactions,” and “easy website,” but lags on “easy to reach a live person,” “makes me feel valued,” and “rewards my loyalty.” According to the data, customers do not feel as emotionally valued by Amazon as they do by other online players like Etsy, QVC, and Wayfair. ... "

Forrester Examines Conversational Computing Platforms

Passed along to me, useful, but ultimately this is about a choice in specific context.  In supporting architecture.

The Forrester New Wave™: Conversational Computing Platforms, Q2 2018The Seven Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack UpBy Rob Koplowitz, Michael Facemire with Christopher Mines , Sara Sjoblom , Diane Lynch , Peter Harrison

Why Read This Report

In Forrester's evaluation of the emerging market for conversational computing platforms, we identified the seven most significant providers — Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nuance Communications, Oracle, and Rulai — in the category and evaluated them. This report details our findings about how each vendor scored against nine criteria and where they stand in relation to each other. Application developers should use this review to select the right partners for their conversational computing platform needs.  .... "

Retail Omnichannel Commerce

Retailers Are Starting To Reap The Rewards Of Omnichannel Commerce
Webinar replay
By Michelle Beeson in Forrester

Retail digital business executives must challenge the status quo and deliver omnichannel excellence across the customer lifecycle. Changing consumer behaviours, new technology, and an evolving competitive landscape mean that traditional organizational structures, processes, and channel-centric measures are no longer fit for purpose. A truly omnichannel operation that spans the customer life cycle will optimize revenue, deliver capital efficiencies like cost savings, spawn operational efficiencies, and improve the customer experience overall.  ... " 

Retailers Need Chat

We worked with a number of chat style systems well before the Internet could adequately support them.  Now there are lots of ways to implement simple chat and Chatbots.  Note it can also be a way to simply chat seamlessly with a customer, for sales and service.   Having your well designed FAQ's and product list and details always show up in a search is another part of this.  But there is no reason today to not include chatbot interactions. 

Retailers Without Chat: A Missed Opportunity
By Kate Leggett,  Vice President, Principal Analyst,  Forrester

Chatting, by definition, is meaningless, trivial talk – but web “chatting” is anything but; it is starting to transform digital customer experiences. And it works. Customers want to use chat. Forty-five percent have used it to interact with a live agent in 2017. The companies that get it are moving towards a holistic chat strategy that straddles both customer service and sales.

Why does chat-based sales and customer service work?

There are a myriad of use cases where web chat improves the customer experience and drives business outcomes in pre-purchase and post purchase engagement. For example, chat puts customers at ease when purchasing a product or service they have never seen nor experienced in person. It also assists in minimizing purchasing errors and eliminating buyer’s remorse, which are among the top reasons for product returns.  ... " 

Will Amazon Own Your Customer?

Amazon Will Own Your Customer And What To Do About It
By James L. McQuivey   Vice President, Principal Analyst

 From twenty years of trying, I know this about covering Amazon: It’s tricky. Our report process can take months during which we comb through our extensive Technographics data to find patterns or we interview executives. Not to mention the time it takes to write, edit, and produce our reports. During which time, the moving target we call Amazon announces dozens of new things that you can’t go back and add to your report. So while I’m pleased to announce that my latest comprehensive review of Amazon’s long-term strategy is now ready for clients to read (see Amazon Will Own Your Customer In The Future), it will appear I have left a few things out. Except that I haven’t, because our read of Amazon’s strategy is so on-point that every one of these significant moves announced by the orange smile is accounted for in our model. For example, Amazon:   (See the full article at link) .... 

Amazon Invades Advertising

Podcast and text.  How will this change their assistants? 

Amazon Has Officially Invaded The Advertising Industry

By Collin Colburn, Analyst,   Forrester

Retailers and security: perception versus reality


Forrester Analysts Brendan Miller and Josh Zelonis discuss the growing concern of security in retail — that which is real and that which is perceived.

Amazon is seemingly part of every sector of the economy – and that now includes advertising.

We fielded many questions from clients about Amazon ads during 2017 and by year’s end, we were curious about how significant its advertising business had become. Since Amazon doesn’t break out its revenues from advertising (although it’s been estimated to be over $1 billion), we thought: why not see how its advertising business performed during the crucial holiday season?  .... " 

Amazon on Private Label

Amazon has dabbled in this space already.   How will it be integrated with classic CPG marketing?

Is Amazon poised to dominate private-label products?

Amazon not only offers its AmazonBasics line of private-label products, but the company also brings in sales from the nearly 45 other brands it owns. Because Amazon can pore through its customer and sales data, the retailer is likely to launch new products to compete with high-selling brands and dominate private-label sales in 2018, writes Shareen Pathak.

Amazon has long honed the business of being the middleman — getting brands to sell on its site, letting shoppers pay for and receive those items fast and efficiently.

But 2017 was the year Amazon started taking steps to create its own brands. If done at the right price point, Amazon will be in a strong position next year to prove it not only can help other retailers grow, it can be a retailer itself.

Amazon already has its AmazonBasics line of essentials like batteries and chargers. These items are largely commoditized, said Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali. It’s easy for Amazon to keep growing there: By bumping those products up in search results and pricing them right — which will be easy to do since Amazon owns the data — this line is poised to keep growing. 

Driving AI Adoption in the Enterprise

Interesting infographic style view look at this question, driven by Forrester surveys.     In particular how enterprises are choosing to do work in this area,  an area I was involved in in previous attempts to bring in this and related technologies. 

Forrester Data Infographic: Who’s Driving AI Adoption In The Enterprise?

Elizabeth Cullen, Researcher

There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) and its underlying technology building blocks are top of mind for enterprises today. But who’s driving this change and its adoption within their organizations?

On the surface, it may appear that AI is yet another technology that firms will expect their technology organization to champion, evaluate, and bolt onto existing systems — as opposed to letting their business leaders drive the charge. Yet the Forrester Data Global Business Technographics® Data And Analytics Survey, 2017 reveals a nuanced view of AI adoption. We found that business technology decision makers (TDMs), i.e., those technologists aligned with a business unit, are the ones driving AI adoption within their firms, more so than traditional technology decision makers who are aligned with the tech organization.  .... " 

AI Changing Organizations from Within

True, but key will be how.  We had lots of expectations in the previous go around of AI, and understanding how it will most likely first plug in is crucial.   We did not do enough of that.  Invest, align, build, follow industry standards?

AI Will Change Organizations From Within

By Michele Goetz  Principal Analyst,  Forrester

Over the past year I’ve spoken formally and informally with hundreds of companies about their AI initiatives. The biggest AH-HA moment comes when these companies realize the difference between implementing traditional technology and applying analytics with adopting AI.  AI is a change from within.  .... "