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The Machine Learning Imperative Posted on : Jun 28 - 2017

There's no longer a debate as to whether companies should invest in machine learning (ML); rather, the question is, “Do you have a valid reason not to invest in ML now?”

Machine learning is here, and it's finally mature enough to cause a major seismic shift in virtually every industry. For example, Matt Swanson, founder of SVSG, wrote an article last year about how chatbots will disrupt a $200 billion industry. While ML cannot solve every problem, it has demonstrated a game-changing impact in enough markets that every CEO and CTO must ask himself/herself whether they understand ML well enough to rule it out for their own business. While appreciating the rewards of ML may be difficult, we do know the risks: ML has already disrupted several industries, including e-commerce, autonomous driving and customer engagement. The risk of ignoring ML today is one that is probably too large for any established company to take.

Machine Learning Changes The Game

While artificial intelligence grabs most of the spotlight in discussions about machine learning (primarily due to its easily graspable life-altering implications), it is but one of many disciplines in ML. Big data has demonstrated the enormous value of data: Netflix and Amazon recommend films and products based on our own purchase history and those of customers like us. Thus, big data has helped us answer questions we already knew to ask, questions such as, “What more can I sell to my customers?”

 Machine learning allows us to make even better use of the data we have, as well as the data we don’t currently possess, and answer the questions we didn’t know we should ask.

Machine Learning Uses Data We Don’t Yet Have

Analytics and business intelligence extract information from structured data (i.e., data stored in databases: customer information, purchase history, etc.). But thanks to ML, we can now extract information from unstructured data such as texts, phone calls, images and videos. View More