SAS, a leader in data and artificial intelligence solutions, has revealed what it calls a “game-changing approach” for businesses to effectively address business obstacles.
With the release of affordable, sector-specific AI models for individual licensing, SAS aims to provide businesses with easily implementable AI solutions that will enable them to produce real-world use cases with unmatched efficiency.
Research director for Future of Intelligence at IDC Chandana Gopal stated: “SAS is expanding its portfolio to serve a greater range of customer needs and gain market share with creative new solutions,
“Productizing models based on SAS’s core assets, talent, and intellectual property from its wealth of experience working with customers to solve industry problems is an area that is ripe for SAS.”
Large language models (LLMs) for generative AI are the main usage models in the market today. The modeling requirements of actual production deployments of AI and business decision-making are, in fact, largely unmet by LLMs. With this new product, SAS is going beyond LLMs and providing deterministic AI models that have been proven in the industry for a wide range of use cases, including document conversation, fraud detection, supply chain optimization, entity management, and healthcare payment integrity, among others.
In contrast to conventional AI implementations, which may be complex and time-consuming, SAS’s industry-specific models are designed for rapid integration, allowing businesses to operationalize reliable AI technology and hasten the realization of measurable advantages and reliable outcomes.
extending one’s market reach
Companies are under pressure to compete successfully, and they are turning to AI to provide them a competitive advantage. At the same time, the lack of AI expertise has made it harder than ever to staff data science teams. As a result, companies want AI to be used with agility and they need adaptable AI solutions to produce business results fast. Due to SAS’s enterprise-focused, powerful, and user-friendly models, organizations have benefited from the company’s 50 years of industry leadership.
One result of SAS’s $1 billion commitment to AI-powered industrial solutions is the delivery of industry models as bundled offers. The investment in AI expands on SAS’s decades-long commitment to offering packaged solutions to address industry concerns in banking, government, health care, and more, as detailed in the May 2023 announcement.
“Models are the perfect complement to our existing solutions and SAS Viya platform offerings and cater to diverse business needs across various audiences, ensuring that innovation reaches every corner of our ecosystem,” stated Udo Sglavo, SAS’s vice president of AI and analytics.
Through customization of our methodology to comprehend certain industry requirements, our frameworks enable firms to thrive in their unique environments.
Making AI widely available
Starting with an AI assistant for warehouse space optimization, SAS is democratizing AI by providing off-the-shelf, lightweight AI models that make AI accessible to all users, regardless of skill level. These non-technical assistants employ technology such as massive language models to translate encounters into efficient workflows and speed up the planning process.
According to Sgvalo, SAS Models offer businesses AI that is adaptable, timely, and easily accessible while also taking industry issues into account.
“SAS delivers unmatched depth and breadth in addressing your business’s particular demands, whether you’re starting your AI journey or looking to accelerate the expansion of AI across your enterprise.”
Later this year, the first SAS Models are anticipated to be widely accessible.
At the moment, IBM is concentrating its research and development efforts on using AI in IT operations. “As people try to build applications out in the world, it’s an increasingly complex situation,” Ball said in his explanation. Many teams simply get overwhelmed by the amount of data involved in creating and maintaining an application over time since there are so many tools and environments involved.
IBM Concert, which will use AI to make sense of the massive quantity of data involved in application development and maintenance, is the company’s response to this challenge. Ball explained, “It uses AI to actually figure out how your application works, and then it makes recommendations about how to make it better.”
Future Prospects for AI
Ball claims that organizing the unstructured data that AI models use is a current opportunity. He admitted that there might be a difference between an unstructured data swarm and what you want in AI—that is, presorted, ready to use. With IBM Concert scheduled to expand and include tools to arrange data into a format more palatable for AI engines, IBM is actively aiming to close this gap.
Another important component of AI that IBM is tackling with IBM Concert is explainability. “We’re actually building in a function that you can question the recommendation so that you can question what the AI comes up with, and sort of dig a little bit deeper into how it came to that conclusion,” Ball said, emphasizing the significance of not accepting AI advice at face value.
Driving the labor of the future
IBM provides a range of AI tools and technologies, including Watson and AI governance solutions, in addition to IBM Concert. IBM seeks to offer a “use-case-neutral” approach, as Ball clarified, enabling clients to take advantage of IBM’s AI capabilities for their unique requirements.
With IBM Concert, IBM has made headway in tackling the problem of data overload that many organizations experience. Ball revealed that, even at the most fundamental level, design partners have been “amazed at what we’re able to do, the insights that we’re able to show.” IBM anticipates that when IBM Concert’s capabilities advance, it will offer even more insightful analysis and findings that will enhance application security, performance, and management in general.
Ball offers clear guidance to organizations thinking about implementing AI for the first time: “Think carefully about what you want to achieve with it. Instead of entering the room with the mindset that the technology itself is the end goal, come with a concrete use case and objective that you want AI to achieve.
The business intends to highlight the IBM Concert and its potential to revolutionize technology operations through the power of AI at the forthcoming Intelligent Automation Conference, which IBM is a major sponsor of.
“We’re excited about this, and we think our customers are going to be excited about it too,” Ball said, expressing excitement about the possibilities of IBM Concert as the conversation came to an end.