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In today’s world, the progress and growth of any business are not reliant on effective promotion and quality of its products & services alone. Instead, with the advancements and rapidly growing popularity of big data and data science, the corporate sector is turning more towards the use of Business Intelligence tools. These software tools are supposed to analyze the data, interpret them, and present the underlying useful information for further use. This data and the subsequent information is becoming essential for the businesses to plan their future development and marketing strategies. That is why the use of Open-Source Business Intelligence software is becoming the need of time.

What is open source business intelligence?

Open Source Business Intelligence refers to the business data that provides important information about the company. Today, the information extracted from this data is a prerequisite for the company’s growth and development. That is why the trend of big data and data science is dominating the corporate world.

The Open Source Business Intelligence (OSBI) software are specialized for extracting relevant information from this OSBI data to provide ready details to the business owners. These software programs are adorned with typical management and analytical tools that help you get a well-presented data for your brand, project, or the company. Usually, OSBI software programs are available for free. Nevertheless, there are some tools which require you to pay subscription or service charges.

If you look up to find the best free OSBI software programs, you will come across a myriad of tools offering various impressive features. Of course, it will be difficult for you to choose the best one that meets your requirements, but it is obvious that you cannot use all of them. To help you make a decision, we have researched for the best free and Open Source Business Intelligence software. After going through the product features, here we present the ten best Business Intelligence software which might be useful for you.

1. Jaspersoft BI Tools

Launched by Tibco in 2014, the Jaspersoft Community BI tools is one of the most robust Open Source Business Intelligence software programs available for free. It is an embeddable suite that provides interactive reports and analytics that can embed in a mobile or web app as well. The suite comprises of several tools, all of which feature unique options for your convenience. These are,

• JasperReports Server
• Jaspersoft ETL
• JasperReports Library
• Jaspersoft Studio
• Visualize.JS

Among these, the JasperReports Server is one the key BI tools in this suite. It is a standalone reporting server that creates unique web-based reports with an intuitive user interface. The suite is also accompanied by Jaspersoft community where you can share your queries, ideas, and other discussions. The only problem here is that you are addressing the entire community of developers at large. Hence, you remain unassured of getting a response. However, if you receive a reply from someone, you are likely to get a few more replies to your query.

2. Zoho Reports

Zoho Reports is yet another Open-Source Business Intelligence software that is launched with a vision to help the business community by providing analytical data reports and dashboards. It is a great tool to analyze any data and create useful reports visually. The software allows two users at a time. Nevertheless, $10 per month may be paid to add more users (but it will not be free then).

Though this software has a limitation of two users with its free version, still, it remains a better choice for the real-time analysis of data and to get unlimited reports and dashboards. The most impressive feature of Zoho Reports is its unlimited cloud storage with no restrictions regarding the file sizes.

3. BIRT

Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) is an impressive BI suite from Eclipse that is being used by some of the business giants of the world, such as Cisco, IBM, and S1, while being sponsored by IBM and Innovent Solutions along with Actuate. Launched in 2004, BIRT indeed is the most used open-source business intelligence software, as depicted from its 12 million downloads and more than 2.5 million developers across 157 countries.

An impressive user-interface and user-friendly features are the things which make this software an industry standard. It is an embeddable tool that can generate a range of comprehensive reports including textual details, graphs, and various charts. In addition to the report layout, it also features data access and scripting tools.

Although this software is mainly designed to fulfill the requirements for intuitive reporting, it can go slightly further to include data analysis as well, and to present the data in a more grouped and analytical way by performing various functions such as summing, totals, percentage. Moreover, it can be embedded with multiple other applications. Hence, if you are already using some other business apps, no worries – this software can easily integrate with all such apps. Precisely, BIRT can be easily embedded with JAVA/JAVA EE to create riveting reports.

Following are the main components of BIRT, each of which lets you avail a unique feature to satisfy your business needs.

• Visual report designer for creating BIRT reports
• Runtime environment for generating embeddable reports
• Chart engine
• Chart designer
• Viewer

4. KNIME Business Intelligence Tools

The Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME) presents an inclusive platform as an open-source business intelligence software that is developed as an integration platform to create analytical reports. KNIME consists of all those components that are required for data mining and machine learning. Predominantly, there are two different programs in this business suite. KNIME Analytics Platform, and the KNIME Cloud Analytics Platform.

KNIME is indeed a fantastic brand with more than 1000 modules to facilitate the data scientists and analysts. It carries a myriad of instant examples of analyses, a comprehensive toolset and a range of algorithms for the users to choose from. It is a rather specified software that may not be easy to use for the beginners. However, for the data scientists and experts, mainly those willing to work on R, Python, or other predictive machine learning tools, KNIME is undoubtedly a convenient option, which also allows you to perform multivariate analysis and data mining.

The only limitation with KNIME is that it is difficult to be used by apprentices. Nevertheless, owing to its amazing features, this little restriction is negligible.

5. Pentaho Community Edition

Pentaho is a designated Business Intelligence tool that combines analytics with data integration to create logical reports by visualizing the data. Owned by Hitachi, Pentaho is one of the most interactive Open-Source Business Intelligence software programs that offer a lot of BI options that satisfy your business needs and generate output in multiple formats, such as Excel, PDFs, and HTML.

This business suite is offered in two different editions. One of them is the Pentaho Enterprise Edition, which is a subscription-based program that features slightly more features than the other variant. Whereas, the other is the Pentaho Community Edition which is an open-source business intelligence software, featuring almost all necessary features and options you may require to create comprehensive analytical reports.

The prominent features of this software include,

• OLAP Analysis
• ETL
• Data Mining
• Metadata
• Reporting
• Dashboards
• Solutions for business problems

Wondering how does this software carry out all these functions? Well, the Pentaho Community Edition is adorned with some fantastic tools that make this software a robust one. Here is a quick view of the portfolio of this BI program.

• Data Integration
• Business Analytics Platform
• Aggregation Designer
• Report Designer
• Meta Editor
• Schema Workbench
• Hadoop Shims

Although the Pentaho Community Edition features somewhat complex UI and programming tools, and the novices may find it difficult to work on. Nevertheless, if you have a coder with you, or know a bit about coding yourself, then this software program is indeed the best option for you since the range of customizability you get in return for a little coding is simply impressive. The software sports Pentaho’s CTools that let you create personalized dashboards and visualization in the reports by coding. If you get perplexed at any point while coding or you have any questions regarding the CTools options, the Pentaho’s community forum is a nice place to discuss.

6. SpagoBI

Developed by an Italian software services company, Open Source Competency Centre of Engineering Group, SpagoBI is one of the best choices as an Open-Source Business Intelligence Software for reporting, data mining, and charting. With a myriad of analytical functions, the software ensures to include advanced visualization in the reports.

Precisely, the key analytical features offered by SpagoBI include,

• OLAP analysis
• Reporting
• Graphs
• KPIs
• Dashboards
• Geo-referenced reporting
• Free Inquiry (QbE)
• Cockpits
• Data mining
• Data analysis and documentation
• ETL/EII Processes
• Smart filters
• Real-time consoles

The most important module of this software is the SpagoBI Server which offers core analytical features. It has two conceptual models for analysis, both of which support different functionalities. These include the analytical model that fulfills the analytical requirements, and the behavioral model that moderates the end user roles for visualizing the data and all other documents.Moreover, this software is also equipped with various administration tools including, import/export tool, scheduler, menu management, user profile management system, monitoring and audit, graphical interfaces, and subscription management. Besides, the cross-platform services featured with this software allow you to perform analytical activities regarding all related domains.

7. ReportServer Community Edition

ReportServer is yet another free and Open-Source Business Intelligence software that requires you to have a background knowledge of coding to get maximum benefits from it. The best part which makes it distinct from the other open-source BI software programs is its support for unlimited users. It means you can add as many users here as you want, without worrying about any subscription plans. ReportServer can integrate various BI reporting tools to a single user-interface for convenience, while it also enables you to apply all analytical tools to the data. For instance, it can easily integrate with BIRT, JasperReports, and SAP Crystal reports.

Another prominent trait of this software is its feature of TeamSpaces that supports communication. It indeed is a feature missing in most of the other OSBI software programs. The other prominent features of this software include,

• Dynamic lists
• Graphic reports
• Interactive dashboards
• Report variants
• Hierarchy
• User management
• Data sources
• Report management

Besides, there is a dedicated community forum through which you can share your queries with others and get your problem solved.

8. Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft has set up a norm of producing user-friendly products, which remain convenient for amateurs and non-technical persons. Continuing the trend, it has launched an impressive open-source business intelligence suite known as ‘Power BI’. It is a cloud-based service that allows 1GB of data storage per user in the free version. Power BI refreshes once in a day, and if you have downloaded the dedicated Power BI app, you will be informed about the updates as well. However, you may not be able to carry out any analytical activities through the app.

The Microsoft Power BI is a simple and wonderful tool to help all those who are not aware of coding. Since you can enter all your data in sample English language, you are not required to make efforts to learn about coding and programming.

Power BI is truly an interactive tool that gets connected with online platforms to fetch the data for you. With the connectors and pre-installed dashboards, Power BI can analyze the data and present visually creative reports by connecting with Google Analytics, Salesforce, and other important software.

So, if you wish to get creative and informative reports of your data, but are unaware of coding and programming, then Microsoft Power BI is indeed your choice.

9. Seal Report

Continuing our list of free and open-source business intelligence software, we now talk about another excellent BI tool for creating impressive reports and dashboards. It is meant for the Microsoft .NET Framework written in C#. The main features of this interesting BI software are user-friendly dashboards and interactive reports. Concisely, the software sports the following distinct features.

• Dynamic SQL sources
• HTML 5 charts
• Native pivot tables
• Charts in Microsoft formats
• Web report servers
• HTML rendering via Razor engine
• Task Scheduler

All these features together create interactive reports, which are comprehensive as well as easy to understand, and are generated with minimum efforts.

10. RapidMiner

Although mentioned at the end of our list of best free and open-source business intelligence software, RapidMiner is among the leading OSBI tools in the market. It certainly sports all those features that are required by the data scientists for all the data mining and business analytics. It enables the user to perform all activities related to data modeling and preparation, and deployment within the same environment. The RapidMiner Community Edition is a free variant of the software that can easily be downloaded from the site.

The free version of RapidMiner is available for all three of its products – RapidMiner Server, RapidMiner Radoop and RapidMiner Studio. The RapidMiner Server gives you a storage capacity of about 2GB for free. The paid version of it has slightly more features which you can avail by paying a cost of $2500 per year. Presently, RapidMiner has earned the support of around 250,000 data scientists, which indeed depicts its usefulness and efficiency for data analytics.

Wrapping it up

The Open-Source Business Intelligence software range is undoubtedly helpful for the world community of data scientists and BI executives. All the software programs, including those discussed in this article, bear different features, and analytical tools. However, the primary focus of all these software tools remains the same, that is, to generate interactive data analysis reports for the users. Leveraging the robust features of these softwares is indeed the need of time for the businesses to flourish and sustain a stable position in the market.

Listed above are some of the best free OSBI software programs which are dominating the niche of Business Intelligence. If you are perplexed on choosing the best OSBI software for your business, our brief review might help you in making an appropriate selection.

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AI is everywhere now! A study shows by the year 2020, 85% of the enterprises will be overtaken by Artificial Intelligence. With its effective methods AI is finding a drill in every industry at its best. Now the question rises as to what effect will AI have in the eCommerce sector? Well, many of us think of AI as plastic and impersonal. However, nothing could be further from the truth. AI is actually making it possible to personalize the eCommerce shopping experience in an extremely detailed manner. For some of us, this thought is hard to fathom.

Recently, Titan launched a ChatBot on its website and this has predominantly created change in the buying and a lot of customers found it absolutely pleasant and that this AI method has really benefitted their purchases. AI eliminates the need to guess and use trial and error tactics. Instead, it allows business owners to have access to information that lets them know exactly what their customers are interested in and when to introduce it.

1. The Intensely Personal Customer Experience

One of the biggest benefits of AI is its ability drive data regarding customer behavior and usage patterns as acquired from other e-commerce platforms through algorithms that create personalized shopping experiences for online buyers, besides giving in-depth visibility on trends. In other words, this customer will not be inundated with any offers or information that he or she hasn’t expressed an interest in on some level.

• AI Analysis is more Efficient than Human Analysis
• The Analysis of Millions of Transactions can be fine-tuned to Target a single customer
• Predictive Intelligence and Contextual Sales make it possible to present the most relevant information to customers

2. Actionable Sales Intelligence

AI gives businesses access to information about a client at three different stages of the sale. Businesses now have the ability to gain information about a customer before the sale, during the sale, and after the sale. As a result of this vital information, a business has the opportunity to truly customize the experience for the customer. Imagine being able to create a highly unique individualized experience for each customer, eliminating irrelevant information and presenting the customer with information that client data has already shown them to be interested in. This is nothing short of ingenious.

An AI startup tied up with hyper-local shopping sites such as Big Basket to enhance their warehouse operations and guess what! They have made it and has the AI is able to read the RFID for every customer there by enabling to higher productivity in sales with satisfied customers.

This has created a good opportunity for the AI to create intelligent customer engagement.

3. Target Specific Customers with Specific Messages at Key Times

AI makes it possible to fine-tune the entire user experience in many different ways. Businesses can zero in on specific customers with an evidenced data-driven message, proven to get results, at a time proven to be most effective to get positive results. This approach is a sure fire way to maximize the user experience in an intensely personal way. As a step to create a novel innovation AI will definitely create new varieties and categories of products that are associated with the customer’s thoughts and experience. Taking an advantage of the AI will be at its utmost when this happens and the eCommerce sector gets high statistical records of purchase.

4. AI Provides Timely Intelligence for Solutions to Business Challenges

AI makes it possible for a business to identify which customers are the most likely to buy their products through demographic data as well as purchase history. Once a business is armed with this type of information, they are able to communicate with the prospective customer on a more effective level and easily identify what the customer actually wants and needs. This business intelligence (BI) is helpful in increasing sales. This trend will only continue to grow because it has been proven to be an effective approach. More business will begin to employ this approach because of its effectiveness.

For example, Pinterest’s visual search feature will help users to see the milestone that AI has created as it explains AI’s utility in retail, supportive customer experience in a highly innovative way to search for products. How cool is that, now!!

5. Merge AI with your CRM

If businesses want to take their eCommerce goals a step further, consider merging AI with the CRM. This allows you to personalize your solutions and create compelling sales messages that reach people at the right time and in the right context and platform. Creating an effective CRM will allow you to respond to and answer customer questions and multitask. It will also allow you to resolve problems and even identify new opportunities for sales. If your AI system facilitates natural language learning, your customers can interact with your CRM by asking questions, addressing problems, and recognize more sales opportunities.

Mintigo introduced a Predictive Sales Coach that uses AI to directly provide actionable sales intelligence to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Again studies have found that, by 2019 AI will be put into CRM to analyze, interpret and collate data’s to enhance the customer experience on the eCommerce website.

6. Quicker Access to Information

AI allows a business full access to invaluable information which helps company employees become more proactive in dealing with customers. As a result, the sales process has evolved over time. AI has replaced the need for the trial and error, guessing approach that was often a part of the sales process. AI provides data that has already been analyzed making the information expedient up to date and accurate. As a result, employees are armed with relevant information that’s both relevant and appropriate for the customer. Thus it is visible that AI is creating a big change by providing quicker access to information, and a known fact is that the eCommerce industry would be at its best effective way when it provides companies with the prompt information system.

AI will allow all the right information most relevant information to be accessed so that customers are never present with information that is irrelevant and inappropriate. Instead, eCommerce businesses will have access to help them engage with customers in a way that’s relevant, appropriate and timely. Now businesses can garner information about a customer before a sale takes place, during the sale and after.

With the progressive development of the AI in this industry it will be highly notable that e-commerce will become more significant, automated and user-friendly. It will serve as a big gig platform for the commercial entities that will enhance buying overcoming barriers of purchase. AI will vitally showcase about the retail experiences, personalized structures of purchase, new products and other services with a highly interactive experience overall.

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Regardless of how much people earn, the jobs they have or whether they’re part of the workforce, banking is a necessary routine.

It may not come to mind as one of the most technologically advanced industries, but has still undergone some significant advancements that make the industry at large ready to serve an increasingly digital society.

Some Banks Have No Physical Branches

Not so long ago, one of the first things people verified before switching to new banks is that those financial institutions had locations near their homes. Now, that’s no longer as necessary as it was, especially since numerous banks only operate online and don’t have facilities to visit.

In addition to the convenience of not having to find the appropriate banking brand when traveling, these online-only banks typically provide excellent customer service.

They’re also known for other perks, such as low fees and the option to choose familiar names such as Capital One, which has an online-based business arm.

The Rise of 24/7 Mobile Banking

Typical business hours don’t always suit people who work night jobs and sleep during the day or are sole caregivers for family members who can’t leave home or stay somewhere unattended. However, thanks to the increased prevalence of banking apps, it’s possible for people to deal with finances whenever their schedules suit.

In addition to the banks above that exist in the digital world — and usually have their own apps — most of today’s leading banks know that to compete in the industry, they must cater to emerging customer needs.

That means designing feature-rich apps that help people use their time productively. Customers can transfer money, check their accounts, and talk to customer service agents with just a few taps on their smartphones or tablet screens.

Also a few years ago, people often raised their eyebrows at the thought of banking online, especially if they had security concerns. However, things have changed. The Mobile Ecosystem Forum conducted its Mobile Money Report study and found 61% of respondents engage in banking via their smartphones, and nearly half of respondents (48%) use mobile banking apps.

However, as mobile banking continues to gain strength and recognition in the marketplace, it’ll be perpetually necessary for providers to keep their platforms secure. Apps could become tempting targets for hackers, and if they become compromised, people won’t be so willing to use them.

A Diversification of Accepted Currencies

Silver and gold are two of the longest-standing forms of currency, with the latter considered by some as the only metal that universally symbolizes wealth. Also, silver mining has occurred since as far back as 500 B.C. People can find references to both these valuable metals in Greek mythology, books of the Bible and other ancient texts. Back then, banking often occurred in temples.

Today, there are still various accepted forms of currency, with certain kinds being more popular than others depending on trends, geographic locations and so on. Paying with a debit or credit card offers a widely established way to buy things without carrying cash.

People are also exploring cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, an entirely digital form of payment. They appreciate the advantages it offers, such as sending money anywhere and at any time.

Bitcoin does not have a single governing body determining usage. That fact appeals to people who prefer being in full control of their money.

Although Bitcoins are one of the most well-known cryptocurrencies, there are hundreds of others to consider as well. Litecoin, Ripple and Ethereum are a few of them.

Traditional ATMs Are Losing Popularity

There was a time when the concept of getting money dispensed from a hole in the wall seemed like something straight out of a science-fiction novel. But now, that’s commonplace as people use ATMs.

However, in some places, such as India, digital money transfers are so popular that banking institutions are removing ATMs from the country. In the future, people may see them as fixtures as relevant to the modern world as dinosaurs.

The machines are often located in urban areas where people can easily rely on other ways to get money. That makes sense, especially because digital means are more private in the right circumstances and do not include the safety risk of a thief snatching the money immediately before a person reaches to retrieve it.

Banks have also looked at more diverse uses for ATMs. Returning to the example of India, there are some banks there evaluating ways of presenting ATMs as platforms for money transfers. In Ireland, people regularly use ATMs to purchase credit for mobile phones.

Also, Wells Fargo recently unveiled cardless ATM technology, which is ideal for people who realize they forgot their wallets during evenings out. Individuals use a corresponding app that distributes numerical passwords authorizing access to the ATM. Other banking entities use QR codes to verify identities.

As the banking sector keeps pace with people’s needs and desires associated with managing their finances, it’ll be interesting to see how opportunities continue to evolve.

The industry has already come a long way and obviously understands the need to continually deliver up-to-date capabilities for stakeholders.

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I am a big Google fan. Before I start pouring in praises for the search giant, it’s quite amusing to note that their well-loved search routine begins with the modest process of web crawling performed by crawlers (aka spiders or bots) commonly referred to as Google bots.

How they tested, tried and played with the crawled data has turned them into a massive unparalleled search sensation.

So what set them apart?

The Google Journal

About 2 decades back, Google – currently the most valuable company in the world, started out with a rather simple looking mission statement – to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Formulated by Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the search engine was powered in 1998 from a garage in suburban Menlo Park, California. The building blocks of their search engine, as covered by Google engineer Matt Cutts’ video on the fundamentals of search include -

1. Web crawling – With a list of web addresses gathered from sitemaps and previous crawls, the web crawling process is initiated. Computer programs called Google bots, decide the sites to crawl and the frequency at which the crawl should happen. It is up to the web crawlers to discover new, updated information on the list of websites it has.
2. Indexing – Just as how you would check the index page for looking up a particular page in a huge book, Google picks key signals from the crawled data and maintains a huge search index that is claimed to be over 100,000,000 gigabytes.
3. Serving – Having the information stacked up, Google then serves the relevant pages to users by applying the PageRank Algorithm. The algorithm measures how important a page is based on the number of incoming links and 200 other factors!

No wonder you get most of your answers from Google.

The Google “WOW” factor

Search engines like Archie, WebCrawler, and Yahoo existed prior to Google but fizzled out with Google dominating the Internet in the years that followed. A few key areas where Google stood out remarkably were -

1. Passion and innovation – Founder Larry Page had a perfect vision for his search engine – to understand correctly what a user wanted and give back exactly what they wanted. Google was not satisfied with giving just a bunch of websites as results but had a passion to serve the right answer. They worked hard in fine-tuning their algorithms to bring about better search answers making about 1600 improvements in 2016 alone.

Google was also futuristic in terms of trying out various innovative features like interpreting spelling corrections in search queries, finishing off people’s thoughts with Google autocomplete and returning answers in different languages having relevant images with universal search. It didn’t stop there.

Getting about a trillion search queries a day, Google took an extra mile to reason out why a user was typing in a particular search query. Was it for directions to a particular place or to find a bakery nearby or to check out local clothing trends? With these questions, they went on to build more search-based products like Google maps, Google news, Google trends, Google alerts, and Google flights, growing to be more than just another search engine.

2. Faster results – In a short video presented by Google on the Evolution of Search, Ben Gnomes, a Google Fellow outlines the goal of the Google team to get answers to users faster and faster. Amit Singhal, another Google Fellow, describes how Google failed to give relevant search results during the Twin Towers attack in 2001 as the Google index was crawled a month earlier. To address this they initiated crawling the news quickly and improved the frequency of their web crawling process in the years to follow.

3. Staying Relevant always – Though Google made a lot of strides in their search and software products, they stayed 100% true to their initial mission of making as much relevant information as possible and available not just to a chosen few but to everyone. Rather than crowding their homepage with irrelevant content, they stuck to a simple box for typing in the search query. Serving the most relevant answers to all users mattered the most to them.

The Google lesson in web crawling

Google kicked off with the humble web crawling process of systematically looking at web pages across the Internet. But understanding user intent, Google knew the nature of questions that they had to work with presenting the right answers from their crawled data.

There is a lot of information out there on the World Wide Web that holds answers to your business questions. Web crawling, a can gather information according to the nature of your business query. It could be anything like – What is the best price I can sell my commodity at? Who are the competitors in my area of expertise? What is lacking in them that I possess? What companies are Venture Capitalists interested in? Is there a relevant business technology I can invest in? Can my solutions be of help to potential client profiles whom my solutions I can reach out?

Ask right, innovative questions like Google and look for answers from the information gathered in the web crawling process. If you are new to the web crawling activity, do get in touch with us!

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Artificial intelligence has changed the way we do everything. Order takers have been replaced with automated menu screens that allow you to customize your meal. The digital assistant on your smartphone allows you to get information, make calls, or send text messages hands-free. In the world of recruiting, bots can take over numerous routine tasks you need to perform in order to turn a candidate into a new hire.

Automation is changing the way that so many of us work, allowing us to get twice as much done in a single day. You have a lot of important things to do that need the time and attention that only a human can provide. There’s no need to waste time clicking through pages and pages of irrelevant information anymore – some things are best left to the robots.

1. Asking Questions and Compiling Data

That big long list of screening questions you need answers to takes up a large portion of your time with a candidate. You can get the same answers from a recruiting bot. The bot can take that information and compile it into an overview of the candidate, telling you where your hits and misses are. Educational background and qualifications aren’t the most exciting things to cover – the great thing about recruiting bots is that they don’t get bored.

2. Interview Planning

When a candidate meets interview criteria, your recruiting bot can set up that interview. If you keep a current digital calendar that lists your availability, your recruiting bot can share your availability with candidates who meet interview criteria, allowing them to schedule a timeslot that works for you. You will then get a notification that the recruitment bot has scheduled an interview. Combine that with the information the bot has extracted from the candidate, and you have everything you need to make a well-informed confirmation call.

3. Touching Base with Candidates

The follow up is important. Busy recruiters don’t always get to follow up in a timely manner. There are so many balls up in the air that it can be hard to catch them all before they fall. Leaving the first follow up to the bot makes things a lot easier. Sending reminders or generalized information out through the bot can provide candidates with what they need to set up another meeting with you, or to call you and provide you with additional details you may need.

4. Getting a Candidate Work Ready

After you’ve decided that a candidate would be a great fit, robotic recruitment tools can start the onboarding process. What do you need the candidate to bring? Are there virtual resources they can use to research their job responsibilities and the specifics of their position before they begin working? What about training materials and information about policies and company culture? Your recruitment bot can provide a fully inclusive welcome package for employees who are ready to start.

5. Freeing Up Your Time

Above all else, the main advantage of outsourcing tedious work to a recruitment bot is that you’re no longer personally responsible for that tedious work. Bots don’t need a break to sleep or eat – they can constantly screen candidates and help the cream rise to the top. All you need to do is review the information the bot has provided for you and take its suggestions, which will all come from your set specifications.

This frees you up to do anything and everything else. Focus on the equally important tasks which require creativity, such as writing great job descriptions for your next board post, or developing better interview questions. Since your end of the deal only involves phone calls and interviews, you’re able to give your full attention to other aspects of your job. The automation will help you become more productive, and even give you extra time to spend with a candidate who seems promising. In the end, you’ll be making more informed decisions because you’ve had more time to make them.

It’s safe to say that automation is the next best thing in recruiting. If you aren’t already using bots to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, you’re missing out. Recruiters are already busy enough – leave the burdens to the machine and focus on the things that matter most.

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Artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation are poised to change not just the modern enterprise, but the world as we know it. They are completely changing the way consumers engage with companies. They are altering the way enterprise thinks and operates regarding business intelligence.

In fact, the influence of these technologies and platforms has entered nearly every industry from construction and engineering to medical and health.

Forrester Research predicted an increase of about 300% in AI investment, for 2017 alone, compared to the year prior.

Looking at the performance of these technologies throughout the year, we’d say Forrester was pretty darn close, if not spot on.

But it’s not as if this doesn’t make sense. The AI and machine learning tools of today are not just improving themselves, but also improving in the way they are deployed and implemented.

Neural networks, for example, have evolved business analytics to offer more accurate and precise predictive data. It wasn’t long ago that human teams were tasked with sorting, organizing and reviewing troves of data for actionable intel and insights. Now, that tedious process can be automated.

With all the growth we’re seeing, it does beg the question: How will the AI and machine learning landscape change over the course of the next year? What new technologies, deployments and devices will crop up or take hold of the market?

1. Deep Learning and Neural Networks

Through a combination of learned processes, algorithms, analytics and automation, deep learning and neural networks can and will completely change the way businesses handle information in the modern world.

Some of the potential applications include automatic speech recognition for communication channels, image and optical character recognition, advanced prediction and deployment. The idea is that analytics will become more than just collected, processed and static or dynamic data. It will become a living, thinking system that influences how your business and team operate.

A neural network might, for example, be able to predict exactly how your holiday sales and performance will play out, based on current annual trends, past performance and other data. This would, in turn, allow you to make more informed decisions when preparing for the holiday rush, helping you to maximize your performance and revenue.

2. Biometrics and Authentication

Passwords, passcodes, and patterns work, sure, but they’re wholly ineffective when it comes to security. You lose your pass, and you lose access to your accounts and services. It also happens when you lose access to linked channels such as email and mobile.

Biometrics and biometric data are unique to your body and include things like your fingerprints, retinal pattern, voice and even facial structure. The related technology deals with identification, measurement and authentication of various body segments or behaviors. This can be leveraged to, say, unlock a personal device or account.

Not only will this technology become more reliable and prominent, but it’s also not a stretch to claim the technology will soon be integrated with AI and automation. Imagine walking up to a work computer, where an AI system automatically scans your appearance, measures your facial features, unlocks hardware and opens the necessary software and documents.

3. Natural Language Processing

Voice assistants and automation systems have been in use for years, and you’ve encountered them nearly every time you’ve called a public hotline or corporate number. Sometimes they work. Other times, not so much.

Thanks to natural language processing, however, these tools can become much more advanced, capable and precise. This applies not just to voice-based but to text and messaging tools as well. Through a combination of machine learning, big data processing, and statistical methods, these systems could effectively communicate with human beings with little to no conversational hurdles.

4. Chatbots and Virtual Agents

Natural language processing will also give way to modern chatbots and automated, virtual agents. These systems are already being deployed on a broad scale, especially in retail and e-commerce. The bots or systems rely on language processing, data troves and reactive algorithms to interact with human audiences.

More importantly, they will become much more capable and convenient as they are programmed to do and achieve more. We’ll go from the simple tasks we have right now, like checking account balances, or reading back purchase history, to incredibly advanced support.

A bot could, for instance, reach out to the proper in-company reps when you message it for support. The system would acquire answers and take action to address a problem. Calling into a bank hotline, for instance, would result in the AI looking over recent purchases and refunding the improper charge(s) with little to no oversight.

It sounds a bit crazy, especially when you consider what could happen if this technology malfunctions. In the previous example, such a scenario could result in lots of lost revenue for the bank. That said, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility because of how advanced these systems now are.

5. Decision and Project Management

AI and machine learning tools will not only be able to predict future patterns and trends, but they’ll also be capable of deciding on a viable course of action for the future. This could be used in project or decision management to influence the outcome of an event. While success is never guaranteed, imagine being about 90% sure something is going to pan out the way you want it to. That could change the way you handle your business considerably.

6. Robotics, Cobots and Androids

We’re far off from human-like androids that are impossible to tell apart from human beings. That said, the robotic systems of today are capable of much more than just simple tasks and automation. Even in the consumer world, we have robotic vacuums, smart speakers, home automation tools and much more.

Corporate processes, manufacturing, shipping and fulfillment can and will benefit from deploying modern robotics. Amazon is already doing this, and other companies have followed suit.

7. Speech Recognition and Dictation

Assistants like Alexa, Siri and Cortana use speech recognition software to discern what you’re saying and then take action.

The same is true of tools or software that transcribes your actual words into text on the screen. Sometimes, the accuracy of these systems can suffer for a variety of reasons. Maybe your voice tone or accent is unrecognizable? Maybe the system isn’t developed well enough to find less common words and phrases? Maybe it’s the hardware involved, like a low-quality mic?

AI and machine learning are currently being integrated with speech recognition to enable a better understanding of human language. This differs from NLP and chatbots because of the different ways we use the recognition tools. You can’t have any of these components without the others.

8. Process Optimization

In business, it happens that sometimes you think you’re doing things in the most efficient way possible when that’s not actually the case. And when it comes to incredibly large organizations, sometimes it can be nearly impossible to coordinate all the necessary information and communications to improve a process or deploy a new one.

Generic machine learning, analytics and big data systems can change that completely. Imagine toolsets that can identify business problems and deliver an optimized business case or strategy to fix it.

9. Digital Twin or AI Modeling

In a variety of industries, including architecture and engineering, having a digital or virtual twin is beneficial. Most of the time, humans handle the information, data and designs used to create these models. AI and machine learning tools will soon be able to create these elements on their own with little to no external input.

Agent-based modeling or computational algorithms are just one example of this technology in use today.

10. Explainable AI and No More Black Boxes

One of the issues with more recent analytics and machine learning tools is that they are considered “black boxes” with little to no informational data regarding how they approached an action or decision or why they made a particular choice. The problem with this is that you end up with accurate systems, but you cannot duplicate a lot of the processes and achievements because you don’t know why they occurred.

Explainable and better monitored AI will become more prominent in the business world over the next year. Those mysterious processes will no longer be so questionable, which means more replication and success for everyone.

It’s hard to say precisely how technology will impact the way we live our lives in the future, but one thing’s for sure — artificial intelligence is going to play a big part in the changes that occur.

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