Crystal Ball 2021: A Push Towards Holistic Artificial Intelligence
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), a premier global market research company, “Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are top of mind for most organizations today, and IDC expects that AI will be the disrupting influence changing entire industries over the next decade.” Given the important role that Artificial Intelligence will play in digital disruption in the coming decade, it’s important to define what AI really is.
There are many buzzwords in the AI space leading to confusion in the marketplace and a deep misunderstanding of what AI is and what it is capable of achieving. AI is not one thing, it’s a generalized term for software or a platform that can imitate human intelligence and can be applied in a virtually limitless number of ways. Buzzwords like, neural networks, deep learning, natural language processing and machine learning can all roll up into the tight little bow of Artificial Intelligence and they are the building blocks which an AI platform uses to “learn” for itself.

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AI can be applied in many different ways. We see AI being applied in our everyday lives if we have a smartphone that uses facial recognition to unlock, an Amazon Alexa to tell us the news and through social media, take TikTok’s notoriously smart algorithms that make the platform so addictive. AI is all around us, even commercially, though the commercial space has been slower to adopt AI technologies.
The commercial space has predominantly taken a more ‘piecemeal’ approach to adopting digital technologies, yet to fully capture the benefits of true artificial intelligence due to the use of discreet solutions, like advanced analytics or automation only to target a piece of their full process. There are many use cases of automation on manufacturing lines or chatbots in the customer services department but what about a holistic end-end approach?
Enter the first AI prediction for 2021
Holistic, end-end Artificial Intelligence, like Elutions’ Maestro, will replace the currently isolated approach to adoption of discreet digital technologies.

Leaving behind solutions, touted as AI, that only addresses one piece of the process, like predictive maintenance, and adopting true AI that is self-learning, self-adapting and applied in an end-end approach to drive and even automate actionable intelligence across the entire value chain is the way of the future. The piecemeal approach may have worked in the past but with the new normal we are living in businesses need to begin thinking about their processes as if they were living, breathing beings.
Let’s think about it this way, if an overweight patient goes to the doctor and they are experiencing knee pain, a pain killer or a cortisol shot might address the pain right away and in the short term, but what about addressing the root cause? The doctor can see the full picture and knows that for sustained change, the patient will have to lose weight to rid themselves of their knee pain.
Now, let’s apply this analogy to a manufacturing plant, the plant is the patient and Holistic Artificial Intelligence is the doctor. A discreet solution, one that perhaps only addresses maintenance, is only able to impact one specific point in the manufacturing process, this solution can only prescribe a painkiller. However, an end-end solution is capable not only of detecting the root cause of a maintenance issue, but also addressing the pain point, it’s chain effect on the process, prescribing and in the case of Maestro, automatically implementing a holistic solution.
A great approach for businesses to best take advantage of AI, whether they are a University, Manufacturer or an Oil and Gas corporation is to focus on outcomes and addressing pain points. Businesses must focus deeply on their individual challenges and use Artificial Intelligence to address them as a whole. For example, many manufacturers experience asset downtime and plant failure as a major site challenge, a challenge that can be addressed and significantly reduced, if not eliminated entirely, with a holistic end-end AI approach.
In 2021 we will see a rapid increase of AI adoption to address a host of challenges across the entire value chain. Let 2021 be a year of digital transformation with Elutions as your partner. To learn more about specific case studies of Maestro Artificial Intelligence applied, please contact us.
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