Because hardware, software and staffing costs for AI can be expensive, many vendors are
including AI components in their standard offerings or providing access to artificial intelligence
as a service (AIaaS) platforms. AIaaS allows individuals and companies to experiment with AI for
various business purposes and sample multiple platforms before making a commitment.Popular AI cloud offerings include the following:
Automation. When paired with AI technologies, automation tools can expand the volume and
types of
tasks performed. An example is robotic process automation (RPA), a type of software that
automates
repetitive, rules-based data processing tasks traditionally done by humans. When combined with
machine learning and emerging AI tools, RPA can automate bigger portions of enterprise jobs,
enabling RPA's tactical bots to pass along intelligence from AI and respond to process changes.
Machine learning. This is the science of getting a computer to act without
programming. Deep
learning is a subset of machine learning that, in very simple terms, can be thought of as the
automation of predictive analytics. There are three types of machine learning algorithms:
Supervised learning. Data sets are labeled so that patterns can be
detected and used to
label new
data sets.
Unsupervised learning. Data sets aren't labeled and are sorted according
to similarities
or
differences.Reinforcement learning. Data sets aren't labeled but, after performing
an action or
several actions,
the AI system is given feedback. Machine vision. This technology gives a machine the ability to see.
Machine vision captures and
analyzes visual information using a camera, analog-to-digital conversion and digital signal
processing. It is often compared to human eyesight, but machine vision isn't bound by biology
and
can be programmed to see through walls, for example. It is used in a range of applications from
signature identification to medical image analysis. Computer vision, which is focused on
machine-based image processing, is often conflated with machine vision. Natural language processing. This is the processing of human language by a
computer program. One of
the older and best-known examples of NLP is spam detection, which looks at the subject line and
text
of an email and decides if it's junk. Current approaches to NLP are based on machine learning.
NLP
tasks include text translation, sentiment analysis and speech recognition.Robotics.This field of engineering focuses on the design and manufacturing
of robots. Robots are
often used to perform tasks that are difficult for humans to perform or perform consistently.
For
example, robots are used in assembly lines for car production or by NASA to move large objects
in
space. Researchers are also using machine learning to build robots that can interact in social
settings. Self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicles use a combination of computer
vision, image recognition and
deep learning to build automated skill at piloting a vehicle while staying in a given lane and
avoiding unexpected obstructions, such as pedestrians.