Our fast-paced digital economy shaped by global competition requires increased data-driven decision-making based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The benefits of deep learning (DL) are manifold, but it comes with limitations that have, so far, interfered with widespread industry adoption. This paper explains why DL, despite its popularity, has difficulties speeding up its adoption within business analytics. It is shown that the adoption of deep learning is not only affected by computational complexity, lacking big data architecture, lack of transparency (black-box), skill shortage, and leadership commitment, but also by the fact that DL does not outperform traditional ML models in the case of structured datasets with fixed-length feature vectors. Deep learning should be regarded as a powerful addition to the existing body of ML models instead of a one size fits all solution. The results strongly suggest that gradient boosting can be seen as the go-to model for predictions on structured datasets within business analytics. In addition to the empirical study based on three industry use cases, the paper offers a comprehensive discussion of those results, practical implications, and a roadmap for future research.

The realization that AI-driven decision-making is indispensable in today's fast-paced and ultra-competitive marketplace has raised interest in industrial machine learning (ML) applications significantly. The current demand for analytics experts vastly exceeds the supply. One solution to this problem is to increase the user-friendliness of ML frameworks to make them more accessible for the non-expert. Automated machine learning (AutoML) is an attempt to solve the problem of expertise by providing fully automated off-the-shelf solutions for model choice and hyperparameter tuning. This paper analyzed the potential of AutoML for applications within business analytics, which could help to increase the adoption rate of ML across all industries. The H2O AutoML framework was benchmarked against a manually tuned stacked ML model on three real-world datasets. The manually tuned ML model could reach a performance advantage in all three case studies used in the experiment. Nevertheless, the H2O AutoML package proved to be quite potent. It is fast, easy to use, and delivers reliable results, which come close to a professionally tuned ML model. The H2O AutoML framework in its current capacity is a valuable tool to support fast prototyping with the potential to shorten development and deployment cycles. It can also bridge the existing gap between supply and demand for ML experts and is a big step towards automated decisions in business analytics. Finally, AutoML has the potential to foster human empowerment in a world that is rapidly becoming more automated and digital.

This study examines conversational business analytics, an approach that utilizes AI to address the technical competency gaps that hinder end users from effectively using traditional self-service analytics. By facilitating natural language interactions, conversational business analytics aims to empower end users to independently retrieve data and generate insights. The analysis focuses on Text-to-SQL as a representative technology for translating natural language requests into SQL statements. Developing theoretical models grounded in expected utility theory, this study identifies the conditions under which conversational business analytics, through partial or full support, can outperform delegation to human experts. The results indicate that partial support, focusing solely on information generation by AI, is viable when the accuracy of AI-generated SQL queries leads to a profit that surpasses the performance of a human expert. In contrast, full support includes not only information generation but also validation through explanations provided by the AI, and requires sufficiently high validation effectiveness to be reliable. However, user-based validation presents challenges, such as misjudgment and rejection of valid SQL queries, which may limit the effectiveness of conversational business analytics. These challenges underscore the need for robust validation mechanisms, including improved user support, automated processes, and methods for assessing quality independent of the technical competency of end users.

The digital economy requires increased data-driven decision-making based on AI. The adoption speed of deep learning in business analytics is surprisingly low. Deep learning is benchmarked against traditional machine learning models. Deep learning does not show superior performance on structured data. GBM is the go-to model for predictionsin business analytics.

Dr Anastasia Griva is exploring real-world phenomena in the AI and business analytics space, looking to answer questions that are important to society. Dr Anastasia Griva received her PhD in business analytics from the Athens University of Economics and Business three years ago. This was an industry-funded PhD and she worked closely with the retail sector, while establishing two AI and analytics start-ups. But academia was her dream and so she joined the University of Galway as a post-doc researcher. She applied successfully for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship through Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland research centre for software. After this, she obtained her first academic position as a lecturer, and she is now the programme director for the MSc in business analytics at the University of Galway.

Data science is one of India's rapidly growing and in-demand industries, with far-reaching applications in almost every domain. Not just the leading technology giants in India but medium and small-scale companies are also betting on data science to revolutionize how business operations are performed. Data science is the field where large datasets are collected, analyzed, and interpreted in a way that assists in making critical business decisions in a better manner. Data scientists are the experts in the data science community, having considerable knowledge and experience in utilizing scientific techniques to gather and interpret monstrous data to be used for a specific purpose or project. Data science is a perfect field for anyone with a passion for data and numbers and a keen interest in mathematics and technology.

Our world has become increasingly digital, and business leaders need to make sense of the enormous amount of available data today. In order to make key strategic business decisions and leverage data as a competitive advantage, it is critical to understand how to draw key insights from this data. The Business Analytics specialization is targeted towards aspiring managers, senior managers, and business executives who wish to have a well-rounded knowledge of business analytics that integrates the areas of data science, analytics and business decision making. The courses in this Specialization will focus on strategy, methods, tools, and applications that are widely used in business. Topics covered include: Data strategy at firms Reliable ways to collect, analyze, and visualize data–and utilize data in organizational decision making Understanding data modeling and predictive analytics at a high-level Learning basic methods of business analytics by working with data sets and tools such as Power BI, Alteryx, and RStudio Learning to make informed business decisions via analytics across key functional areas in business such as finance, marketing, retail & supply chain management, and social media to enhance profitability and competitiveness.

Say you need to implement some machine learning system. Should you purchase a product, re-use open-source code, or develop your own algorithms? The decision does not need to be a binary one. I discuss the pluses and minuses of both options. Combining them offers the best of both worlds.

IoT devices will help marketers deliver more specific and personalized content to users in heterogeneous contexts. Make use of marketing IoT applications.

At Nearpod, we believe teaching is the most important job in the world. Every day, we reach students through our learning platforms on Nearpod.com and Flocabulary.com. We have diverse backgrounds, but a shared goal of putting teachers and students first in everything that we do. We have won numerous awards including EdTech Digest's 2018 Company of the Year. Recently, we were acquired by Renaissance to support the shared mission of accelerating learning for all.