A report in March from Manthan Systems describes how IBM’s Watson computer is a harbinger of the business intelligence model that’s rapidly taking shape, and that the business intelligence that’s emerging is difficult to distinguish from what we might consider to be artificial intelligence today.
The report, entitled “Can Watson Change Business Intelligence?” describes how IBM’s Watson computer, which competed on the game show Jeopardy! against two human contestants and won, went about arriving at answers. The computer used language comprehension, intelligent search and analytical capabilities to find the right answers to complex questions in a matter of milliseconds. Manthan Systems believes this is indicative of how humans are using business intelligence to analyze information, find the right answers to their questions and beat out their competitors.
When we think of traditional business intelligence, we might think of static reports and charts that are provided to managers and executives who use the information to help guide decisions. As we put more tools directly in the hands of end users, the way they use the information to solve business problems is different from the way they have used static reports and graphs because the tools give users a more intuitive and interactive way to explore data (think Social BI) . We’ve become accustomed to searching information and this is the approach that most end users are taking when presented with business information and interactive tools. As it turns out, it’s a pretty intelligent way to approach problem solving because it naturally incorporates learning and reasoning into the problem solving process.
As users search information for answers, they learn from the results at each step and their subsequent questions are shaped by those results. This naturally leads people down a “path of inquiry” that eventually winds up at a place where people can draw conclusions or make decisions based on their interactive analysis of the information. It’s not unreasonable to think that an intelligent tool can follow the same process, evaluate any number of solutions and learn from the results at each step to arrive at the right answer. In fact, this is the way that Watson arrived at the correct answers when competing in Jeopardy!
According to the report, the business intelligence that’s emerging is akin to artificial intelligence today and is a result of the convergence of language interpretation, mobile access and a search-driven approach combined with unstructured data analytics (e.g., text, video, voice) and predictive analytics and supported by collaborative processes and technology such as in-memory processing. Perhaps your next business intelligence analyst will be named “Watson, Jr.!”
To learn more about the shift from the traditional BI model towards Social BI sign up for our complimentary webcast “Introduction to Silver Spotfire” on Monday, April 18th at 11:00 ET.
Steve McDonnell
Spotfire Blogging Team
