How will AI help Wipro Blaze a trail?

The other day, during an Alma Mater get-together, there was a long-year-apart awkwardness among a few and just to break the ice we were to shout out our favourite hero. All of them responded with one name or the other, but me. I have for long, been a die-hard fan of Jarvis, the highly advanced computerized AI developed by Tony Stark. It was another thing that I got weird looks from others.

Jarvis is Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, which has kept our views about AI on a pinnacle bordering fantasy. I genuinely apologize to break the bubble, but would you believe that you have been encountering AI on a daily basis? The autocorrect function on your MS Word or for that matter on your mobile, which sometimes ends in embarrassing typos is nothing but an artificial intelligence that evolves as and when you type, understanding the patterns and trends. It also, in fact, learns from its earlier errors and can also predict the next word.

AI is not as mundane as it sounds above and is, in fact, playing a major role in businesses which have robot-aided functions. Dr Kevin Curran, a technical expert at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), elaborates on the functionality of AI and says “AI software is running underneath all sorts of modern technological tasks from autopilot to the magnificent gyroscope ability of Segways. Anywhere that 'fast fuzzy type' decisions need to be made - there is some Artificial Intelligence involved."

With technological advancement, a new wave of artificial intelligence is making it possible to do all kinds of things, which earlier would not have been possible. HOLMES, Wipro’s artificial intelligence platform is one such outcome of four years of research and development. It is built on open source technologies, to address key domains in cognitive computing.

All set to implement a next-generation customer helpdesk management solution for Nexenta, the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS), which would be powered HOLMES, Wipro will also implement a Service Bot Workbench for Nexenta’s internal Technical Team.

HOLMES, using Natural Language Processing (NLP) will not only automate the creation of service tickets, auto-categorize tickets using intelligent algorithms, resolve issues using intelligent virtual bots and scripts but also enable faster resolution of service tickets, improving productivity and enhancing the overall user experience.

Although artificial intelligence has been a vital area of study for technical innovation and scientific research, capturing the popular imagination since the 1950s, the exponential evolution of computing technology, especially pertaining to AI has only brought it in close contact with conglomerates irrespective of the type of business. AI is being adopted by organizations across the globe in numerous aspects of their business to improve productivity and increase efficiency.

Talking on the same and referring to HOLMES, K.R. Sanjiv, CTO, Wipro Ltd says that from here on strong reasoning capabilities and the ability to contextualize will be the key to enabling superior business outcomes and they are confident of achieving this with the Nexenta project. HOLMES has set Wipro on a blazing trail, which would be seeing exponential growth in the coming years.

However, technology still cannot come anywhere near the complex thought process that man commands in spite the fact that they can do some individual tasks as effectively as or even better than humans. “It’s a long way from general intelligence,” says Christopher Bishop, a distinguished scientist with Microsoft Research Cambridge.

So all those who are anticipating a digital Darwinism theory, I would say patience is a virtue.