INSIGHT Cloud Industry Forum
93%of businesses use cloudbased
services in some
form Cloud Industry Forum
Cloud Computing and Artificial
Intelligence in 2020
According to recent research undertaken on behalf of the Cloud Industry Forum, it seems clear that most
businesses are moving towards cloud-based computing.
82% of the 250 UK senior
IT and business decisionmakers
asked, said that the
cloud is very important or
critical to their digital strategies.
53% also said that new
technology, such as articial
intelligence, is their most
important IT project.
93% of those asked in the
Cloud Industry Forum research
revealed that their businesses
used cloud-based services in
some form, and 69% said they
use more than one cloud-based
service. ere are many dierent
reasons for this, including
benets surrounding exibility,
costs, and scalability – when
compared to a traditional
on-premise server.
What is artificial intelligence
software?
e term ‘articial intelligence’
is a term used to encompass a
range of dierent software which
relies on machine learning.
Rather than being truly
‘intelligent’, a lot of machinelearning
software is programmed
to scour the internet and gather
information in order to answer
questions. It relies on historic
searches and statistical-based
analysis to deliver an answer or
provide a service.
Developers build software that
uses neural networks to consider
statistics, make connections, and
reach meanings without relying
on pre-dened behavioural
algorithms. While the
technology is sophisticated, it is
still limited in that it cannot
truly think for itself – rather, it
analyses only the data it is
exposed to.
How the cloud and AI work
together
A lot of complex AI programs
are essentially powered by cloud
computing because they require
internet-wide connectivity.
Anything hosted on a cloud can
be accessed from anywhere
across the globe. is
connectivity means that
programs hosted on the cloud
have access to the rest of the
online world; a feature that is
required for some machine
learning/pseudo-AI technology
to work.
AI Apps & Cloud Computing
ere are all sorts of machine
learning platforms which rely on
the data that is stored on the
internet. An example would be a
plant identication app. e user
submits a photo of a plant they
have seen, and then the app
works by comparing that photo
to other images found on the
internet. e app analyses the
features of the plant - the colour,
leaf shape, length etc – and
compares this information to
what’s available online in order
to identify it.
e machine learning
program is therefore only as
clever as what it has access to; in
plant identication the answer
might not always be accurate, if
the app cannot nd another
image that matches the user’s
photo suciently. e results
oered will depend on the
accuracy percentile that has been
stipulated by the app’s
programmer.
AI Cybersecurity Software &
Cloud Computing
Similarly, AI cybersecurity
programs might be
sophisticated but they cannot
be entirely relied upon.
Software created for the
purpose of tackling cybercrime
is designed to analyse copious
amounts of data in order to
understand human behaviour,
and consequently identify any
unusual activity. While this can
help to ag up unexpected and
perhaps malicious actions,
human intervention is still
ultimately required.
Some AI analytics are likely to
give alerts when a user behaves
on the internet in an unusual
way. For example, if they have
incorrectly input a password for
a program, at an unusual time,
from a dierent IP address.
Instances like this could be
entirely innocent, so human
consideration is required to
determine this.
The Cloud and AI in Business
According to the Cloud
Industry Forum report, 71% of
respondents plan to build new
applications for the cloud in
future. Our modern world is
relying more and more on
internet connectivity, so it is
likely to be just a matter of time
until on-premise servers become
obsolete. Today an average of
53% of business IT
infrastructure is hosted on a
cloud, but 87% of organisations
expect the adoption of cloud
services to increase over the next
year.
Many of the brightest minds
in technology are concentrating
their eorts on developing more
sophisticated machine learning/
AI programs, so these too are
likely to become more prevalent
in society. Where AI is bolstered
by cloud computing, the
combination of the cloud and
AI in business promises more
exciting developments and
advancements that are designed
to improve both sta and
customer experience.
40 | Comms Business Magazine | August 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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