Author: The New Economy

Tesla Autopilot chief Jim Keller joins Intel

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On April 26, Intel announced it had hired Jim Keller, the head of Tesla’s Autopilot programme, to lead the chipmaker’s silicon engineering. Keller’s departure from Tesla signals deepening trouble at the electric carmaker’s Autopilot division.

Keller has extensive experience in microprocessor design, having been chief architect at mobile-processor specialist PA Semi before the company was acquired by Apple in 2008. At Apple, Keller was instrumental in the design of the A4 processor responsible for powering the iPhone 4. In 2012, Keller joined chipmaker AMD, staying at the company until the end of 2015, when he joined Tesla to work on its Autopilot system.

Jim Keller’s departure from Tesla Autopilot is the third time the programme’s head has left in just over a year

“I had a great experience working at Tesla, learned a lot and look forward to all the great technology coming from Tesla in the future,” said Keller in a statement. “My lifelong passion has been developing the world’s best silicon products.

“The world will be a very different place in the next decade as a result of where computing is headed. I am excited to join the Intel team, to build the future of CPUs, GPUs, accelerators and other products for the data-centric computing era.”

Keller’s departure from Tesla Autopilot is the third time the programme’s head has left in just over a year. Keller took over for Chris Lattner in June 2017, after Lattner had spent just six months in charge of the division. Lattner had replaced Sterling Anderson after his departure at the end of 2016.

The news comes after a tumultuous couple of years for Tesla’s Autopilot programme. Despite technological progress on the platform, a driver operating Tesla’s Autopilot system was killed in 2017 – the first ever death involving an autonomous vehicle.

More recently, a driver was killed when his vehicle, running Autopilot, crashed on a highway in March. Tesla has faced criticism for not providing the same level of redundancy as rival autonomous driving programmes like Waymo.

Top 5 network security pitfalls putting your company at risk

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In a world where high-profile data breaches have become the norm, cybersecurity has quickly become a top priority for organisations of all sizes and industries. Barely a week seems to go by without news of another cyberattack hitting the headlines, prompting businesses to invest heavily in next-generation technologies in an attempt to protect their infrastructure and keep their confidential data secure.

One way of ensuring that organisations have the right safeguards in place is through the adoption of robust network security policies. These rules ensure that only the right people have the right access to the right information, putting the organisation in the best possible position to prevent breaches from occurring.

However, there are several common pitfalls that businesses can fall foul of when implementing their security policies. Here are five of the most prominent that could be leaving your business vulnerable to cyberattacks:

Not having a full perspective of the network
Arguably one of the biggest mistakes a company can make when configuring its network security strategy is to attempt to put policies in place without first gaining full visibility of the network.

Today’s enterprise networks are vast and complex, and organisations often struggle to gain full visibility. This hinders their ability to put strong policies in place and can have a negative effect when making necessary changes to policies across the entire network. Put simply, if one policy is changed it may inadvertently reduce security elsewhere.

Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated than ever and new variations of both known and unknown threats are being discovered at an alarming rate

By incorporating a centralised solution that looks across the whole technology architecture, staff can manage all corporate policies through a single console and see the potential implications of policy changes before they are made. You can’t manage what you can’t measure – so start with visibility.

Disconnected network security policies
This one may sound obvious, but having network security policies in place is self-defeating if they inhibit the business they were intended to protect in the first place.

Businesses are sensitive to the fact that they need to comply with measures to protect critical assets but, if that prevents them from using the applications essential to getting the job done, they will find ways around these policies.

The solution is to provide visibility into how application connectivity is maintained in coordination with underlying network security policies. This approach ensures the business and security teams are always in sync and aligned to the end goal.

From a management perspective, businesses need to have visibility in their application connections in order to understand the effects that could accompany any network policy changes.

Leaving holes unplugged 
Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated than ever before and new variations of both known and unknown threats are being discovered at an alarming rate. For example, 18 million new malware samples were discovered in Q3 2016 alone – equal to 200,000 per day – and ransomware attacks on businesses reportedly increased three-fold between January and September, 2016.

This means organisations must keep their network policies up to date by carrying out regular patches and system analyses. This requires a centralised management system that looks across the whole IT environment.

Hackers are constantly on the lookout for vulnerabilities, meaning no company, irrespective of size or industry focus, can afford to leave holes unplugged.

Rigid practices
Striking the right balance between security and convenience is not an easy task, but it remains key to ensuring policies are adhered to. Any procedures that significantly hinder an organisation’s agility or an employee’s ability to do their job will likely result in them being overlooked or ignored.

Hackers are constantly on the lookout for vulnerabilities, meaning no company, irrespective of size, can afford to leave holes unplugged

The other danger is that staff will find workarounds, which can potentially have serious security and compliance implications. This is where ‘shadow IT’ – employees using applications at work without the company’s knowledge or control – comes into play. According to one poll, 78 percent of IT professionals said their end users had set up unapproved cloud services – each of which can represent a potential unmanaged risk.

It is essential organisations have tools in place that allow them to easily adhere to, and manage, security policies. Anything that forces people to drastically change the way they work, or results in an organisation’s lack of agility, is counterproductive. Increased security coupled with business agility is the ultimate goal.

Overlooking automation
As the complexity of virtually all areas of network security and compliance has increased, automation has become a central component of an effective strategy. There are now simply too many change requests being made to increasingly diverse networks for security teams to keep track of all of them manually. Automation is an essential tool for keeping pace with this degree of change and complexity, helping to reduce human error and, in turn, the exposure of the business.

Finally, automation has a key role to play in network security policy management and compliance. Policy-driven automation ensures that an organisation is compliant with internal and industry guidelines at any given point in time. However, it also means the control plane can be adjusted at policy level and then implemented immediately across the network, further lifting the security level, when required, through adjustment.

By connecting security to operations in this way, companies can vastly improve their resistance to constantly evolving threats. This is a critical point in making a tight security posture a reality all the time, rather than simply “better” for a moment in time.

Network security operations can turn to policy-based automation to reduce complexity, increase visibility and free up resources to focus on more complex tasks to improve operational efficiencies that directly impact the bottom line of a 21st century business.

European Commission opens investigation into Apple’s purchase of Shazam

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On April 23, the European Commission (EC) announced it had opened an “in-depth investigation” into Apple’s proposed acquisition of music recognition app Shazam. The EC seeks to determine whether the merger breaches competition guidelines.

Shazam is one of the world’s most popular mobile apps, with more than one billion downloads to date. Every year, the app helps between 300 and 400 million users identify songs at the push of a button, solving a long-standing problem for music lovers the world over.

The EC’s investigation centres on whether Apple can leverage Shazam’s popularity – as well as its vast database of user preferences – to poach users from rival music streaming services.

The European Commission’s investigation centres on whether Apple can leverage Shazam’s popularity to poach users from rival music streaming services

“At this stage, the commission is concerned that, following the takeover of Shazam, Apple would obtain access to commercially sensitive data about customers of its competitors for the provision of music streaming services in the [European Economic Area],” read the EC statement.

“Access to such data could allow Apple to directly target its competitors’ customers and encourage them to switch to Apple Music.”

Currently, when a song is identified on Shazam, the app offers the user links to various music services to enable them to buy the song. If Apple is able to eliminate its competitors from Shazam’s purchasing options, it could, in theory, maximise referrals to its own streaming service. That said, the EC does not consider Shazam as a key entry point for music streaming.

Apple confirmed its merger with Shazam in December 2017, saying it had “exciting plans in store” for the platform. However, the company did not elaborate on its plans, nor on the cost of the deal, which is rumoured to have been around $400m.

Seven European countries – including France, Spain and Sweden – referred the merger to the EC on competition grounds, leading to the current probe.

Russian communications regulator blocks some Google services amid Telegram row

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On April 22, Google confirmed it was aware that some of its services had been blocked in Russia as part of a dispute over the encrypted messaging app Telegram. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator, has accused the American internet juggernaut of providing Telegram safe harbour on its IP addresses.

“We are aware of reports that some users in Russia are unable to access some Google products and we are investigating those reports,” said Google in a statement to TechCrunch.

Roskomnadzor has blocked around 18 million IP addresses that it believes Telegram has been using to circumvent its ban. Google Search, Gmail and push notifications on Android are among the services seeing limited access. Other services that use Google’s cloud and Amazon Web Services, such as Spotify, have also been blocked.

Russia’s communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, has blocked around 18 million IP addresses that it believes Telegram has been using to circumvent its ban

“Google today has not met the requirements of Roskomnadzor and, in violation of the verdict of the court, continues to allow Telegram to use its IP addresses to carry out activities in Russia,” said Roskomnadzor via its official page on the Russian social media site VK. “Roskomnadzor has included a number of Google IP addresses in the register of banned information.”

Russia began blocking Telegram on April 16 after its founder, Pavel Durov, refused to comply with a court order demanding the company hand over encryption keys to the state’s security services – a move that would have been catastrophic to Telegram’s value proposition.

It is not yet clear what financial effects the block will have on Google, but blocking such an influential and widely used company is likely to backfire on Russia’s economy, as it tries to encourage tourism and make the country more attractive to visitors in the lead up to the FIFA World Cup this summer.

Telegram does not look ready to concede the dispute any time soon, which raises the possibility of visitors cutting their stay in the country short as a result of Russia’s increasingly inaccessible internet.

How blockchain can breed trust in the recruitment industry

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Cambridge Analytica’s use of private information during the US presidential election has brought the issues surrounding privacy and security on the internet into sharp focus. Since the creation of the World Wide Web in 1989, the internet has been a relatively open environment, providing a platform to source information and connect in a way never previously possible. However, the freedom of the internet has not come without its dark side.

Cyberattacks, ranging from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to phishing scandals and basic online identity theft, have wreaked havoc on individuals, companies, governments and international institutions alike. Companies have a number of cybersecurity measures in place to prevent hackers from stealing our personal data, but the fact remains that it is still relatively easy to obtain the personal details of others on the internet.

While there are very few people who would advocate tighter regulations on the internet, the concern over privacy and security is a growing one. Fortunately, blockchain technology promises to reconcile this, meeting our desire for privacy while allowing us to hold onto the freedom we’ve come to expect and enjoy when surfing the web.

Recruiting with blockchain
As a globally distributed ledger, blockchain technology combines sophisticated cryptography and coding to create a decentralised, peer-to-peer database that is capable of recording anything of value immutably. This combination of clever technology and coding means blockchain is almost impossible to hack without quantum computing. One potential beneficiary of this development is the recruitment industry.

Although the public has been slow to understand the value of personal data, the coming years will see candidates wanting to take back control

Each day thousands of candidates send their personal data to recruiters, potential employers and jobsites via the internet in the hope of landing a new job. The amount of personal data shared about candidates during each stage of the recruitment process is significant. While the vast majority of recruiters and employers have suitable, secure privacy policies and cybersecurity practices in place, there is still a risk that servers can be hacked and websites subjected to DDoS attacks.

As well as the risk of a cyberattack, there is also the matter of recruiters and potential employers storing candidates’ personal details on their servers – in some cases, indefinitely. Although the public has been slow to understand the value of personal data, the coming years will see candidates wanting to take back control over who has access to their data and for how long.

CV 2.0 
Through harnessing blockchain technology, candidates can create a blockchain-based CV, which stores their entire employment and qualification history. All of the information on this CV is verified by the organisation it pertains to as part of the decentralised blockchain network, removing the need for third-party verification to prove the candidate is who they say they are.

For the candidate, a blockchain-based CV means not only knowing they will be trusted from the outset, but also that they will have full control over who can access their personal data and for how long. Simply put, smart contracts on the blockchain will enable the candidate to set specific limits over the length of time a person can hold their personal data, as well as specify who has access to it.

How to reconcile privacy and security with the freedom of the internet is one of the most pressing questions of the decade. Blockchain technology has the potential to bridge this gap, providing an infrastructure that is almost impossible to hack while handing control of personal data back to the individual.

Ultimately, the companies that survive in the new age of the internet will be the ones that understand the importance of privacy and enable customers to protect their data while continuing to use the internet freely, as we do now.

Total buys controlling stake in natural gas and renewables company Direct Énergie

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On April 18, French oil giant Total announced it had purchased a controlling stake in natural gas company Direct Énergie – the latest in a string of major deals Total has engaged in over the past couple of years.

As a result of the deal, Total will control 74.33 percent of the French gas company and will pay €42 ($51) a share, totalling around €1.4bn ($1.73bn). The purchase will see Total expand its presence in its home market of France, as well as in neighbouring Belgium.

The move also strengthens Total’s position in the non-oil energy distribution space, as Direct Énergie’s 1.35GW of combined gas and renewable capacity supplements Total’s existing 900MW installed capacity.

The purchase of natural gas company Direct Énergie is just the latest in a string of major deals Total has engaged in over the past couple of years

“Through this transaction, Total is actively pursuing its development in electricity and gas generation and distribution in France and Belgium,” said Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné.

“This friendly takeover is part of the group’s strategy to expand along the entire gas-electricity value chain and to develop low-carbon energies, in line with our ambition to become the responsible energy major.”

This is just the latest acquisition for the French company, as it creates increasingly big waves in international energy markets. In March, Denmark’s energy regulators gave the green light for Total to buy Maersk’s energy business. And, just a month later, the company signed an agreement with Saudi Aramco to build a giant petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia.

Total’s purchase of Direct Énergie mirrors moves made by other companies, such as Royal Dutch Shell, which has also consolidated its supply chain downstream in recent times. It is also not the only alternative energy deal Total has made in the past year, with the company having bought a 23 percent stake in renewable energy company Eren last September.

Top 5 online services banned in Russia

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Online access in Vladimir Putin’s Russia is getting steadily more restrictive. In 2012, an internet blacklist was established to stop the proliferation of extremist content, as well as anything that incites hatred or violates the “established order”.

More recently, Russian officials began working with the individuals behind China’s so-called ‘Great Firewall’. This has resulted in an increasing number of online services being banned in the country. Here are five of the most prominent:

Telegram
The most recent digital service to fall foul of Russia’s media watchdog, known as Roskomnadzor, is Telegram. The mobile messaging app, which has more than 200 million users worldwide, has been blocked for failing to give the Russian Government access to its encrypted messages.

Many of Telegram’s disappointed users will likely switch to rival app ICQ, an instant messaging client connected to Putin loyalist Alisher Usmanov.

VPNs
Although virtual private networks (VPNs) are usually viewed as one of the most effective ways of circumventing internet censorship, the Russian Government has taken steps to close this particular loophole.

Telegram has been blocked for failing to give the Russian Government access to its encrypted messages

In November 2017, a law came into effect that prohibits services that allow users to access banned websites. Although the ruling doesn’t forbid the use of all VPNs, it represents the next step on Russia’s journey towards a more authoritarian online ecosystem.

LinkedIn
Three years ago, Vladimir Putin introduced legislation demanding that all organisations holding data on Russian citizens store it within domestic borders. The highest profile casualty of this ruling to date has been LinkedIn, which was blocked in 2016.

It remains to be seen whether LinkedIn will adapt in order to comply with Russia’s regulations, but the social network was certainly happy to do so to gain access to the Chinese market.

Open Russia
Given Russia’s slide towards autocracy, it should come as little surprise that Open Russia, a pro-democracy NGO, has made the country’s banned list.

Deemed an “undesirable organisation”, Open Russia has been accused of inciting protests and posing a threat to the country’s domestic political situation. To add fuel to such a claim, the website compels Russian citizens to avoid making the same mistakes when, not if, “everything collapses”.

National Endowment for Democracy
In 2015, the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy became the first NGO to be banned in Russia. The group aims to strengthen democratic institutions around the world and receives most of its funding from the US Congress, which alone would probably have been enough to raise Putin’s suspicions. After all, the Russian President has previously described the internet as a “CIA project”.

Shire sells cancer-treatment business to France’s Servier in $2.4bn deal

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On April 16, Dublin-based pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Shire announced it was selling its oncology business to unlisted French company Servier – presenting a potential roadblock to Takeda Pharmaceutical’s bid to buy Shire.

The deal, which Servier hopes will put it on the map as a global player in the oncology space, will net Shire $2.4bn in cash. Shire’s willingness to part with its cancer-treatment unit, which generated $262m in revenue in 2017, demonstrates the company’s confidence in its core business competences, despite its stock price never having surpassed its 2015 peak.

“This transaction is a key milestone for Shire, demonstrating the clear value embedded in our portfolio,” said Shire CEO Flemming Ornskov.

Shire’s sale of its cancer-treatment business could affect Takeda’s valuation of the company – if not its willingness to follow through with the purchase

“While the oncology business has delivered high growth and profitability, we have concluded that it is not core to Shire’s longer-term strategy.

“We will continue to evaluate our portfolio for opportunities to unlock further value and sharpen our focus on rare disease leadership with selective disposals of non-strategic assets.”

However, the deal complicates Takeda’s bid to take over the Dublin-based company. When Takeda confirmed it was considering acquiring Shire at the end of March, it listed oncology, along with gastroenterology and neuroscience, as one of the core therapeutic areas that made the purchase attractive. Naturally, Shire’s sale of this part of its business could affect Takeda’s valuation of the company – if not its willingness to follow through with the purchase.

The sale also means Servier will have a stronger presence in the US market with drugs that treat various forms of cancer, including acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Regulators have given Takeda a deadline of April 25th to decide whether to make a formal offer for Shire, but doubts remain as to whether Takeda can afford the purchase, with Shire currently worth over £7bn ($10bn) more than the Japanese company.

Top 5 AI start-ups in Asia

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Through the Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Plan, China hopes to become the world leader in AI by 2030. And with SenseTime Group recently becoming the world’s most valuable AI start-up, it’s hard to argue that Beijing isn’t on course to achieve such a feat.

But despite all the noise, China isn’t the only country in Asia making strides in the development of AI. Here, we look at some of Asia’s most influential AI start-ups:

SenseTime Group, China
Thanks to its facial recognition technology – and a $600m investment from e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group – SenseTime is now valued at over $3bn, making it the world’s richest private AI start-up.

Its deep learning software provides services such as bank card verification and surveillance to more than 400 Chinese companies.

Appier, Taiwan
A Taipei-based company that aims to provide AI solutions to businesses, Appier has secured over $81m in funding since it was established in 2012.

Appier currently operates 14 offices across Asia, using its AI expertise to serve around 1,000 brands globally.

Thanks to its facial recognition technology, SenseTime is now valued at over $3bn, making it the world’s richest private AI start-up

UBTECH Robotics, China
Based in China’s Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, UBTECH Robotics is the world’s leading AI and humanoid robotics company. It is the first Chinese company to commercialise a humanoid robot and offers a range of products, including the STEM learning Jimu robot for children and Lynx, the Alexa-enabled smart-home robot.

ViSenze, Singapore
Aimed at improving customers’ e-commerce journey, ViSenze’s AI recommends visually similar products to shoppers who upload or search for an image or video online. As a result, retailers such as ASOS and Uniqlo can generate revenue from engaging more with consumers’ shopping habits.

ViSenze’s pioneering image recognition tool has attracted $14m in investment to date.

Mobvoi, China
Beijing-based Mobvoi, also known as Chumenwenwen, is the only Chinese company to develop its own Chinese speech recognition and voice search software.

The technology can be found on WeChat, iOS, Android and Google Glass. Additionally, the company has partnered with Google and Volkswagen to apply its AI technology to the wearable tech and automobile market.

Top 5 talking points from Mark Zuckerberg’s Congress grilling

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The Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved the collection of data relating to 87 million people and may have influenced both the 2016 Brexit vote and US presidential election, has rocked Facebook to its core and caused its share price to plummet.

During two five-hour sessions in front of the US Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to answer questions relating to his company’s business model, the methods used by developer Aleksandr Kogan to harvest personal information and whether users ultimately own the data they share with the site. Here are some of the main talking points:

A business model under scrutiny
It didn’t matter how many times Mark Zuckerberg told Congress that Facebook doesn’t sell user data to advertisers, the assembled legislators didn’t seem convinced.

In fact, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo asked the CEO if he was willing to “change [his] business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy”. In response, Zuckerberg reiterated his belief that the company’s ad-based model is the only way to keep the service free for its users.

Political bias
Although Zuckerberg was primarily called to Capitol Hill to respond to the fallout from the recent Cambridge Analytica revelations, senators did not pass up an opportunity to grill the Facebook CEO about their wider concerns relating to social media.

Zuckerberg admitted that regulation of some kind was “inevitable” but cautioned that overzealous legislation could hurt digital innovation

In particular, Zuckerberg found himself – and the wider Silicon Valley community – accused of liberal bias and the censorship of conservative thought. The former Harvard student did not disagree that many US tech firms are left-leaning places, but he did stress that Facebook receives criticism for its content moderation from both sides of the political spectrum. 

Tracking users
In one of the more heated debates that took place over the two days, Representative Kathy Castor pried into the way Facebook tracks people as they move around the internet.

In a difficult exchange, Zuckerberg was unclear on whether the social network keeps ‘shadow profiles’ for individuals without a Facebook account. He did confirm, however, that users are tracked even when logged out of their account, for either advertising or security purposes.

Regulations on the way
Zuckerberg admitted that regulation of some kind was “inevitable” but cautioned that overzealous legislation could hurt digital innovation. He stressed that while Facebook may have the resources to comply with a shifting regulatory landscape, smaller start-ups may find it more difficult.

Zuckerberg also said the General Data Protection Regulation, which becomes EU law on May 25, could provide a model for US policymakers to follow.

Just the tip of the iceberg?
As well as exploring the possibility that Cambridge Analytica may not be the only organisation that Kogan sold data to, Zuckerberg said Facebook is currently in the process of investigating “tens of thousands of apps that had access to a large amount of people’s information before we locked down the platform in 2014”.

This means the number of users that have had data harvested without their knowledge could be set to grow far beyond the current figure of 87 million.

Saudi Aramco enters agreement to build mega refinery in India

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On April 11, Saudi Aramco announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with an Indian oil consortium, Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemicals, to develop a mega refinery in the Indian state of Maharashtra. This is the second major international deal signed by Saudi Aramco in as many days.

The refinery will cost an estimated $44bn and will have the capacity to process 1.2 million barrels of crude oil every day. A petrochemical-producing complex capable of producing approximately 18 million tons of petrochemicals per year will also be integrated into the facility.

“Investing in India is a key part of our company’s global downstream strategy and another milestone in our growing relationship with India,” said Saudi Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser in a statement.

Saudi Aramco is hoping to cash in on India’s investment push and increasing demand for petrochemicals, which is set to grow by one third by 2020

“The signing marks a significant development in India’s oil and gas sector, enabling a strategic joint venture and investment partnership that will serve India’s fast-growing demand for transportation fuels and chemical products.

“Participating in this mega project will allow Saudi Aramco to go beyond our crude oil supplier role to a fully integrated position that may help usher in other areas of collaboration, such as refining, marketing and petrochemicals for India’s future energy demands.”

The agreement came just one day after the Saudi oil behemoth announced $12bn worth of cooperation agreements with French oil companies. Among these deals was a memorandum of understanding with Total to build a petrochemical facility fed by the two companies’ existing joint venture oil refinery in Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

Aramco is hoping to cash in on India’s investment push and increasing demand for petrochemicals, which is set to grow by one third by 2020. The deals with Indian and French companies are also likely to add value to Saudi Aramco in the run up to its planned IPO next year, which will see the company list a five percent stake worth an estimated $2trn.

Top 11 steps non-digital companies can take to drive growth through AI

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AI was arguably the buzzword of 2017, with the likes of Facebook and Google dominating the headlines for their projects in this field. And with China building a $2.1bn research park focused on AI research – and revenue from AI designed for enterprise applications expected to reach over $31bn by 2025 – it is fair to say this technology will remain a focus for many years to come.

However, many of the headlining AI applications designed to date have come from tech giants, with many other industries yet to see major uptake throughout their value chain. But how do pre-digital companies, otherwise known as digital transformers, take advantage of this AI boom?

Business leaders from pre-digital companies may be forgiven for thinking that trying to emulate the likes of Google to intelligently target customers is the way to go. However, much of AI’s transformative potential comes from data collected by R&D and the industrial processes that take place during a company’s digital transformation.

The business challenges this type of data can address are completely different from those that companies like Google are looking at. To help pre-digital companies harness the transformational power of AI, we have developed the following 11 steps:

Build trust in AI
AI is going to make businesses more productive by automating repetitive operations, releasing resources to focus on higher-value tasks and remove the subjectivity from a human judgment call.

However, organisations will only adopt AI if they can trust the decisions it makes are within an acceptable level of risk. As a general rule, the greater the negative consequence of incorrect AI behaviour to the business, the more rigorous the approach to data and training needs to be.

Don’t blindly hoard data
There is a belief that all data holds value, but this simply is not true. Businesses must identify a problem that needs solving and then work smartly to identify the data best suited to solving it.

Organisations will only adopt AI if they can trust the decisions it makes are within an acceptable level of risk

In essence, quality of data supersedes quantity. This approach promotes understanding of the problem’s context and builds an informed data acquisition and management strategy for the capture, control and exploitation of the data. By taking this approach you can end up with reliable, trusted results.

Focus on user experience
AI interaction must be intuitive or it will not be taken up. Here, we can learn from ‘digital native’ companies: Google Photos, for example, runs neural networks, image analysis and natural language understanding, but all the user needs to master the application is a search bar and grid of their photos.

Your AI implementation needs to be the same: simple, intuitive and natural to interact with. Whether designing new materials with specific physical properties or scaling up production of a monoclonal antibody to treat a rare disease, any interaction with AI must be designed with the user in mind.

Maintain oversight
AI is good at automating routine tasks but cannot deal with situations outside its training. To avoid AI failure, businesses must check random samples of AI outcomes with human experts and plan for human intervention when unexpected events occur, such as extreme weather.

This is partly because of the complexity of non-routine events and also because there is often not enough data on unpredictable events to train the AI appropriately. In this situation, expert human intervention needs to be ready to step in and take over.

AI is about talent as much as technology
While digital transformers have different problems to digital native companies – and need different skills and resources – they should emulate the Google/Facebook approach of finding the right people for the task at hand, and avoid the temptation to simply throw technology at the problem.

By investing in an AI talent pool – one with the right blend of experience, problem solving and technical expertise – and combining that with a clear vision for the AI solution, non-digital businesses can begin to utilise the transformational power of AI.

Mix people
AI should be designed by people who understand the problem, the underlying data and what it represents in a real-world context. The best teams include representatives from IT, operations and business teams, domain experts, AI and data analytics experts, and, critically, people who can translate between these different roles.

Seek out AI experience from other domains, don’t limit your search to your sector; your problem may have already been solved elsewhere

By following this approach, business leaders can ensure their AI projects are backed with the correct technical expertise but also that the team members involved are fully aware of the goals and the underlying business value derived from the company’s AI plans.

Look outside your organisation
Specialist AI skills rarely exist in pre-digital organisations. Look externally and embed specialists within business teams. Seek out experience from other domains, don’t limit your search to your sector; your problem may have already been solved elsewhere.

New thinking and fresh perspectives on your most challenging issues are drivers for game-changing innovation, which can result in new growth for pre-digital companies and provide them with the ability to innovate ahead of their competition.

Build momentum
The temptation is to cover everything, launching an all-encompassing initiative to build and implement a complex cross-enterprise AI platform. But our experience shows that starting too big, too early, undermines effectiveness and delays the impact felt by the organisation.

Companies should start by building a roadmap that identifies the business decisions that AI can inform. Focus initially on well-understood opportunities that can be executed quickly. This will build critical momentum for AI programmes.

Explore multiple AI projects
Accelerate this momentum by running multiple AI projects in parallel, ensuring the best ideas are progressed rapidly. This agility is how digital native companies deliver innovation, but it is often lacking in many pre-digital organisations.

Rapid prioritising of resources into the delivery of the most successful ideas demonstrates an AI strategy focused on the realisation of tangible value, which is crucial to building trust. Trust is vital to the success of any AI project, but particularly in pre-digital companies where staff may be experiencing this technology for the first time.

Fail fast
Monitor your many AI projects, checking the relative performance of each, and abandon bad ideas; use successes and failures to improve your training regimes. Expertise only comes from having many different experiences.

Sampling widely and failing fast leads to a far better trained AI that is dependent upon fewer misplaced human assumptions and is more open to innovation. Agility in your approach to delivering AI is, therefore, crucial if you want your digital transformation programme to have a positive impact on your business.

Quantify value
Businesses must define measurable goals and KPIs for each new AI release, e.g. increased customer engagement, improved production line quality and reduced non-productive time. Businesses should then use these to demonstrate success to financial backers and to feed back into the AI strategy.

Placing AI within such a managed framework delivers many operational and commercial advantages. Performance tracking makes it possible to dashboard and visualise the impact of AI, to manage the programme as a service and embed it into a broader DevOps environment.