Monthly Archives: April 2024

Implementing Your Artificial Intelligence Strategy

The explosion in popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to ignore, as one of the biggest – if not the biggest–technology trends in 2024 and beyond. How will your business use this technology? Read on to learn about developing a strategy to harness AI’s power.

 

Growth in Popularity of AI 

 

The popularity in and market for artificial intelligence only continues to grow. According to a CompTIA article on AI statistics, the global market is expected to grow to $407 billion by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 36.2%. The U.S. market is expected to surpass that, increasing to $594 billion by 2032, growing 19% year over year from 2023 on. 

 

Businesses are at varying states of the adoption/implementation journey. According to the CompTIA report, 22% of firms are “aggressively” implementing artificial intelligence. Another third of firms are implementing AI in a more limited way, and the majority of firms (45%) are still exploring implementation. Even with its popularity, some hesitation exists because of challenges—including the cost of upgrading applications, building out infrastructure, along with the need to fully understand the data that goes into properly training artificial intelligence. 

 

Formulate a Strategy for AI Implementation

 

As with other popular technology, your business needs to consider its goals and how artificial intelligence can help you reach them. Examples of such goals include automation and refinement of routine tasks; enhancement of the customer experience via personalization; analysis of data; and content creation.

 

You’ll also need to consider how to mitigate risks associated with artificial intelligence. Start with security to ensure your staff is trained to follow policy and your proprietary and sensitive data is protected. How will your company deal with hesitation on the part of workers to embrace AI, because of fear of it automating their jobs? What about the quality of data used to train AI’s large language models, data which may include bias? Also to consider is protecting privacy and complying with regulations. The financial cost can include updating applications and building needed infrastructure. These are just a few questions to consider when developing your strategy.

 

Artificial intelligence has shown itself to bring potential benefits to businesses across many industries. For help in developing or refining your strategy, contact your trusted technology advisor today.

Using SD-WAN to Enhance Hybrid Work

n the last several years, remote and hybrid work environments have become common. Many offices have at least a partially remote workforce, and this calls for communications applications that are always on and helping workers to collaborate effectively. To learn about leveraging software-defined wide area networks for seamless communication, read on.

 

What SD-WAN and Why it Matters

 

With remote and hybrid work more common, and teams using popular platforms, seamless Internet connectivity, stability and reliability are essential. Software-defined wide area networking, or SD-WAN, is a cloud-based approach to WAN management that brings together multiple providers to offer the connectivity needed. The infrastructure is in the cloud, eliminating the need for customers to manage and maintain their own. All they need is an internet connection and an appliance at each connection point (remote office). Additional appliances can be added as needed.  SD-WAN uses multiple transports including business-class broadband and networking as well as MPLS already used in WANs, to route traffic effectively for a hybrid workforce. 

 

Software-Defined Wide Area Network offers numerous benefits. First, it reduces capital expense by eliminating the need for companies to maintain on-premise infrastructure. Operational expense is decreased by reducing the need for IT professionals to make trips out to fix problems. Instead, monitoring and troubleshooting is centralized. Like the cloud in general. SD-WAN is scalable, with devices easily added to the network. And by using multiple providers, data is moved reliably to where it’s needed as a result of increased bandwidth.

 

Security Considerations in SD-WAN

 

Readers might be wondering about security.  How can so much data in transit be protected? At first thought, security might be a problem with data being routed to multiple locations. Only by ensuring that the security is fully integrated and traffic is transparent can SD-WAN enhance security, instead of being yet another attack vector.

 

Software-defined wide area networks use the cloud to enhance the communication and collaboration the hybrid office environment requires. For guidance in your company’s SD-WAN decisions, contact your trusted technology advisor today.