T urning Artificial Intelligence into Business Value. T oday.3T urning Artificial Intelligence into Business Value. T oday.By Cyrille Bataller and Jeanne HarrisThe economic and business potential of Artificial Intelligence has filtered up to the C-suite. But how can executives weed out the hype while at the same time guiding their organizations to capture new value in this promising area? This paper offers a perspective on how these technologies are impacting business and society, and presents a framework for understanding how Artificial Intelligence can deliver value for your organization and industry.4IntroductionArtificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic these days, drawing the attention of C -suite executives, not just technologists and research scientists.Artificial Intelligencewhich Accenture defines as information systems and applications that can sense, comprehend and acthas captured the attention of C-suite executives, not just technologists and research scientists.The media regularly draws attention to innovative business solutions based on Artificial Intelligence. Venture capitalists are funding AI start-ups at a rapid pace.T echnology companies are moving swiftly to create and capture value in this emerging area. High-profile acquisitions by Google1, Apple2 and Facebook3 are piquing interest in Artificial Intelligence technologies such as robotics, expert systems, computer vision, and speech, gesture and facial recognition. Companies are creating new research labs devoted to innovating with these technologies, and the number of Artificial Intelligence vendors has increased dramatically.Artificial Intelligence technologies and solutions also face several obstacles. As with any new technology promising to change the world, business leaders wonder how to separate hype from real potential. From there its a short step to wondering if their organization will be one of those that figures out how to capture new value or will be one of those playing catch -up. Add to this skepticism and lack of understanding as well as the widely discussed apprehension about the social and economic implications of these technologies, and its clear that Artificial Intelligence faces serious headwinds.But executives shouldnt let these concerns obscure the considerable likely benefits of Artificial Intelligence. These include lower costs for services, better quality and consistency of services, improved education and medical treatment, and better, faster, more informed business decisions.Decision makers should also recognize that Artificial Intelligence isnt a matter of any single technology or applicationwhether driverless cars or smartphone virtual assistants or trend detection solutions or a myriad of other examples. Artificial Intelligence is a rich and diverse field. The greater value will come from understanding the multitude of related technologies and then integrating those technologies into full solutions. (See Figure 1.)5Figure 1: Examples of how Artificial Intelligence technologies can be integrated into compelling business solutionsTechnologyDefinitionExample SolutionsSenseComputer visionAcquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding imagesVideo analytics integrated with surveillance cameras provides situational awareness of business operations, delivering insights about risk, safety and security. In retail, video analytics can be used to gain insights into shopper behaviors effectively and systematically.Audio processingIdentifying, recognizing and analyzing sounds and speechSpeech recognition technologies integrated into call centers automate the identification of callers.Sensor processingProcessing and analyzing information from sensors other than cameras and microphonesIn an agricultural setting, sensors in the field can be integrated with software to deliver “precision agriculture” sensing and communicating status about temperature, humidity, etc., enabling more precise care for crops.ComprehendNatural language processingUnderstanding and generating language in spoken and/or written formP ersonal assistants on consumer smart phones provide guidance and services using natural language. Increasingly, search capabilities include the ability to understand the meaning of what a person is saying, not just recognizing key words or doing statistical retrieval.Knowledge representationDepicting and communicating knowledge to facilitate inference and decision makingKnowledge-based tools provide the capability to link a particular search or piece of content to other relevant content on the web. This is done by tagging all content and then mapping it to a larger representation of knowledge. For example, a search for “Da Vinci” will link one to particular paintings and creations, as well as to Italy, to the Renaissance, and so forth.ActInference enginesDeriving answers from a static knowledge base such as business