From the Tallahassee Democrat
AMELIA ISLAND – Tech years are a lot like dog years — they go very quickly, said one of the nation’s top Big Data experts during the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce Conference on Saturday.
Companies can transform their delivery services and business models by the “one percent rule” over time and reap catalytic results, said Paul Zikopoulos, vice president of Big Data and Cognitive Systems for IBM.
Zikopoulos is the author of 19 books and a leading authority on Big Data. According to Leading Authorities Inc., he was named one of the “50 Big Data Twitter Influencers” by SAP, Zikopoulos has served as a consultant for 60 Minutes and multiple universities and has been named an expert on big data by publications such as Big Data Republic, Technopedia, and Analytics Week.
Zikopoulos talked an array of real-world technology for the future and about how more attention is being given to deep learning, which allows computers to find patterns instead of physically inputting data.
For example, a smart carpet that learns its owner’s walking gait and can detect a potential burglary or companies, such as Sephora and Pantene, that have created technology wrapped around offering individual services like hair products tailored to the specific weather conditions of a selected city or choosing makeup based on an uploaded picture.
Zikopoulos advised the audience to find a business problem.
“The one percent starts right away. It’s one year, it’s three years. It’s the rest of your life,” he said. “There’s no process that can’t be augmented through the use of AI (artificial intelligence). There’s none.”
He also said this new approach to deep learning and artificial technology isn’t about putting companies out of business.
“This is not removing humans,” Zikopoulos said. “It’s about augmentation. It’s about man with machine, not man versus machine. And I think that’s the key.”
