Best Way To Realize AI Benefits: Don't Shoot The Moon

Businesses will reap more success from artificial intelligence projects by setting short-term, achievable goals instead of pursuing extremely ambitious ones, industry executives advise. Clive Swan is Oracle's senior vice president of applications development. The hype around AI, the set of statistical techniques that teaches software to make decisions based on past data, pushes many companies to rush adoption and launch "moon shots" that are hard to bring to fruition, said Clive Swan, Oracle senior vice president of applications development, at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in September. Typical mistakes include not adequately preparing corporate data or failing to augment it with third-party information sources such as news stories, press releases, and financial or corporate information, Swan said. Bill Briggs, chief technology officer at Deloitte Consulting, used a baseball metaphor, saying during another discussion at Oracle OpenWorld that businesses can do better playing "small ball."