Industry expert shares 2017 data predictions

Major players as diverse as Google, Apple, Salesforce and Microsoft to AOL, Twitter and Amazon drove the acquisition trend this year. Due to the short operating history of most of the startups being acquired, these moves are as much about acquiring the limited number of AI experts on the planet as the value of what each company has produced to date. The battle for AI enterprise mindshare has clearly been drawn between IBM Watson, Salesforce Einstein, and Oracle's Adaptive Intelligent Applications. What's well understood is that AI needs a consistent foundation of reliable data upon which to operate. With a limited number of startups offering these integrated capabilities, the quest for relevant insights and ultimately recommended actions that can help with predictive and more efficient forecasting and decision-making will lead to even more aggressive M&A activity in 2017.