The role of machine learning in data science and analytics

Machine learning has crossed from the lab to the business world. Machine learning provides insights that help to create more intelligent data-driven applications that improve business processes, operation, and easier decision making.

In a conversation at Structure Data 2016 conference in San Francisco, Dr. Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Research and Jack Clark, Bloomberg News – San Francisco, talked about the advances we made in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning in recent years. Dr. Lee is responsible for Microsoft Research New Experiences and Technologies. He said that AI is essentially used to really understand what customers want. For example, machine learning software tools ‘get better’ the more people use them, since the algorithms ‘learn’ the user’s behavior. To get insights that enable meaningful and measurable improvements, artificial intelligence (AI) experiment work needs huge quantities of data, coupled with super fast computing power and cloud technologies. Dr. Lee said that machine learning takes us further; it brings the premise of reinventing new ways to solve challenges.

Strategists and developers point out that AI seems scary to many people outside this field and a common connotation is that “the machines are taking over us, humans”. But, when experimenting with an AI model, the unpredictable results are actually fun.;