When I was young – something I’m saying more often these days – everyone my age watched superhero shows on TV – the stories of stronger and faster, super-powered men and women. Oftentimes it was technology (whether human or alien) that endowed these individuals with superhuman strength, automobile-like speed and telescopic or heat-sensing vision. These superpowers augmented natural abilities to perform better than they could on their own, making them exceptional agents for good.
When discussing the power of AI, I often reflect on the cases where advanced technology made these characters a force for good. About how AI can augment human capabilities to help us become heroes in our own right. In the real world, we use analytics to help us fight our own corporate battles, whether framed as reducing costs, finding new ways to drive revenue – or as in a superhero’s world – fighting crime. With certain “superpowers,” everyone should be able to say “I am faster and smarter. I see farther. I am worthy of your trust.”
Everyone should be able to apply the benefits of AI to the work they do today. AI can automate processes that help engage us in recommended paths. Help us understand the implications of the decisions we make. As a business leader, I need to evaluate which corporate battles I need to fight. I need a boost of analytical power to help me move from raw data to decision making with more accuracy, speed and confidence.
I want to be the superhero of this story. I want to ingest technology created by a mad scientist to become better and faster. I want to use enhanced technical capabilities to augment my skills. Immediately. Effortlessly. Working for, not against, me.
Think about it: AI is designed to not only allow you to move faster, but also smarter; see farther to gain that extra layer of trustworthiness.
The power of AI can help you:
- accelerate repetitive tasks, and anticipate the direction you need to go
- reduce both skills required and time to value for analytics
- become the CEO of your data so that you work with data instead of working for it
- draw attention to insights generated by AI, with transparency into algorithms used
- discover hidden patterns difficult to find on your own, and identify unbiased relationships
- receive a recommended action that engages you, but does not do it for you
- ensure your data is governed, secure and adheres to ethical standards.
Business users like me use AI to do our jobs better. And I want my AI in one tool, without having to cobble it together from multiple vendors to make it work. To make it work for me, not against me, I need it to be naturally infused into what I do, be there for me wherever I am, and respond as the business environment changes.
These ideas drive our AI-infused BI agenda. Our recent release of Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 proves it.
Be faster and smarter
Our solutions have built-in smarts to help you engage more efficiently with your data, placing greater emphasis on supporting your existing workflow. Imagine being able to type “create dashboard for top 5 products by revenue in France” and having Cognos instantly build a dashboard. Yes, that’s possible with Cognos 11.1.7. And we’ve added other smart features such as drop zones where users can simply drag and drop a data set into a workspace to create a visualization in seconds.
And Cognos recommends visualization styles based on the data you select. Rather than spend time searching the library of visual options, let Cognos Analytics make a suggestion. Its native AI also learns from your interactions so the next time you create something, setup time is dramatically reduced. And the user experience is available on your mobile device, to keep you informed wherever you are.
See farther
Among the most powerful capabilities Cognos delivers is AI-driven forecasting. The automated forecasting allows you to generate statistically accurate forecasts based on time-series data. With the click of a mouse, Cognos evaluates nine different algorithms, factoring for seasonality and data smoothing, helping users arrive at the most insightful forecast. Not limited to a single visualization, a single category or simple algorithm, this feature is available in column and line visualizations with multiple categories and with sophisticated models like seasonality, where seeing an accurate, predictive forecast can be game-changing.
Be confident
Cognos is designed to help Analytics Heroes become more trustworthy and confident in their decisions. By unifying data from all sources and creating a single source of information, Cognos addresses the confusion and inconsistency often caused by myriad analytics tools that serve different answers that may produce slow, inconsistent recommendations. Cognos can support tens of thousands of users in a single platform and features a common metadata layer used by all the authoring environments and the data science tools. And all Cognos authoring tools feature access to the SQL generated in dashboards, reports and explorations. Users can examine the SQL and gain confidence that queries are being generated with full transparency.
Cognos Analytics also reveals how the product arrives at identifying predictive drivers and forecasted values. Users can take these details and independently verify the accuracy of results using data science platforms like Watson® Studio or Jupyter Notebooks. When combined with the power of Watson Knowledge Catalog, Cognos provides active policy management and dynamic masking of sensitive data to help you protect data and support your compliance and audit-readiness, and most important, help foster client trust.
You can be a hero
The good news is, you don’t need to be bitten by a radioactive insect, be exposed to a biohazard, or go through a traumatic event to obtain superpowers. The AI capabilities built into Cognos empower users of all skill levels to take advantage of the power of analytics. See farther, exploring the direction your key metrics may trend in an uncertain future. Become the trusted source in your organization who drives more confident decisions to help everyone execute with the best available insights. Whether you need this on-premises, on any cloud, or somewhere in between, Cognos Analytics addresses all business intelligence requirements. So, you can be ready for the bat call any time, from anywhere.