Artificial intelligence (AI) helps companies identify new opportunities and products and stay ahead of the competition. Senior software managers need a basic understanding of how this new technology works, why agility is important in developing AI products, and how to hire or train talent for new roles.
Zorina Alliata spoke about leading the AI transformation at OOP 2023 Digital.
Alliata explained that in a recent survey, 57% of companies said they would use AI and ML in the next three years.
Chances are your company already uses some form of AI or ML. Even if they don’t, they are more likely to do so in the near future to stay competitive.
Ariata said the increasing use of AI and ML in industries ranging from movie recommendations to self-driving cars is expected to have a significant impact on businesses in the coming years.
Software leaders should be able to understand how delivering ML models differs from regular software development. To manage the ML development process correctly, it is important to ensure agility using methodologies that allow rapid pivoting, iteration and continuous improvement, Alliata said.
According to Alliata, software leaders should be prepared to hire or train new roles such as data scientists, data engineers, and ML engineers. She said such a role may not yet exist in today’s software engineering teams and requires very specific skills.
InfoQ interviewed Zorina Alliata about adopting AI and ML in the enterprise.
InfoQ: Why should businesses pay attention to artificial intelligence and machine learning?
Zorina Arriata: AI and ML can help businesses make better decisions, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. AI and ML can be used to automate repetitive processes and significantly improve the customer experience.
A few years ago, when my car’s fender bender broke down, I had to take time off work to get on the phone with my insurance company and take the car to a specific repair shop. Just last year, when my teenage son crashed his car in a parking lot, he used a mobile app to quickly get in touch with his insurance company, upload images of the car damage, rent a car, and pay for the car. I arranged a drop off. For repairs by technicians. He was able to check the status of the repair online, received an automated report, and had the car delivered to his home once the repair was completed. Behind his fun experience was a lot of his AI and ML, including image recognition, chatbots, and sentiment analysis.
Another thing companies can benefit from is mining insights from data. For example, if you look at all your sales data, algorithms might find previously unknown patterns. A common use of this is segmenting and clustering populations to better define focused messages. Your marketing campaigns will be more effective if you can cluster all the people who are more likely to buy a particular type of insurance.
InfoQ: What should senior software managers know about artificial intelligence and machine learning?
Ariata: Let me give you an example. We sometimes do what is called unsupervised learning. That is, they analyze large amounts of data just to see what patterns they find. There are no explicit variables to optimize and no defined end result.
Years ago I read an article about this airline using unsupervised learning on their data. As a result, the machine provided the following insights: It turns out that people born on Tuesday are more likely to order a vegetarian meal on board. This wasn’t a question someone posed or an insight everyone was ready for.
As a software development manager, how do you plan for the strange and surprising insights that algorithms provide? You might not even know what you’re looking for until late in the project. This is very different from normal software development that shows clear results from the start (e.g. showing all flyers and their meals on her web page).
InfoQ: What can businesses do to prepare for AI adoption?
Ariata: Education comes first. As a leader, you should understand how using AI and ML can benefit your company, and have a little understanding of how the technology works. It’s also your job to communicate and openly discuss how AI will change jobs and how it will impact people in their current jobs.
Having a solid strategy and a solid business use case that delivers real value is a great way to start and a great way to use it as your message and vision.
By driving lean budgeting and agile teams, you can quickly show value before large investments in AI resources and technology are made.
It also requires establishing a culture of continuous improvement and continuous learning. Technology is constantly changing and development teams need time to keep up with the latest research and innovation.
