UPDATED 12:09 EST / OCTOBER 02 2017

CLOUD

Oracle injects AI smarts into more cloud applications

Oracle Corp. today announced that it’s extending artificial-intelligence smarts to many of its core business applications.

These “Adaptive Intelligent Apps” will be built into existing Oracle cloud applications, in particular for cloud versions of its enterprise resource planning, human capital management, supply chain management and customer experience applications. They’re intended to provide simpler ways to get insights in real time.

Oracle first talked about these applications at last year’s OpenWorld customer conference, this year’s version of which runs this week in San Francisco. The main focus initially was customer experience apps, including marketing, sales and customer service applications, which were the first set of applications to tap into Oracle’s Data Cloud to craft better product or content recommendations and offer better customer services.

“This year is the broadening of that message,” said Jack Berkowitz, vice president of products and data sciences for Oracle Adaptive Intelligence. So it’s now not just about using customer data but all kinds of data, such as on supply chains.

Indeed, Oracle’s Data Cloud, which claims to have more than 5 billion consumer and business IDs and more than 7.5 trillion data points collected monthly, is what’s powering the new app capabilities. “Data is the essential lifeblood of all of this, Berkowitz said. “When you buy the SKU, you have the data with it because it requires the data to operate it.”

In human capital management, for instance, the new capabilities will help a recruiter better source talent and match people to jobs. The company might also pull operational data on how certain employees are doing and tie it to sales performance to find similar matches outside the company. “You have this layer that stretches across the apps that just makes things happen,” Berkowitz said.

For now, the Adaptive Intelligent piece is an optional capability bought separately, though Oracle didn’t detail pricing. “That allows us to talk about it in a distinct way and also for customers to bring it in in their own way,” Berkowitz said, since many customers use non-Oracle apps as well.

Essentially, Oracle Chief Executive Mark Hurd said Tuesday morning at OpenWorld, “you’ll see AI built directly into each of these applications.”

“They’re following through on the roadmap,” said Doug Henschen, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. He noted that once it delivers, Oracle may have a headstart on software-as-a-service rival Salesforce.com Inc., whose Einstein AI capability is focused mostly on customer experience applications.

Image: geralt/Pixabay

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