The Big Opportunities at the Junction of AI and Analytics: An Interview with Tom Davenport - TCS Perspectives

Tom Davenport, a professor at Babson College near Boston, a Fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, a co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, and a senior advisor to Deloitte's analytics practice, shares his views on AI and analytics in an interview with TCS. He is co-authored the 2016 book'Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines.' Davenport, the man responsible for making big data and analytics a topic of boardroom discussions, explains his views on the connection between analytics and artificial intelligence, automation and augmentation, opportunities arising from cognitive technologies, and how companies should address AI's impact on jobs. Davenport argues that the largest and most sophisticated branch of AI today is machine learning. While asserting that AI is primarily based on big data and analytics, Davenport believes any company that would skip analytics and go straight to AI is less likely to be successful. He explains that every industry has major opportunities from cognitive technologies and AI.