In September, IBM Corp. announced enhancements for its Cloud Pak for Data offering, designed to leverage a data operations or DataOps methodology to help customers prepare large amounts of information for the application of artificial intelligence.

It’s a gap in the enterprise information-technology world, which IBM believes must be filled for many companies to utilize AI effectively.

“You’ve got data science to help you build AI; you’ve got DevOps to help you build the apps; you’ve got nothing to basically help you prepare data for AI,” said Daniel G. Hernandez (pictured, left), vice president of data and AI at IBM. “DataOps is the equivalent of DevOps but for delivering AI-ready data.”

Hernandez spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Data and AI Forum in Miami, Florida. He was joined by Scott Buckles (pictured, right), business unit executive at IBM, and they discussed the importance of people in the DataOps process and how closer attention to preparing data for AI will improve contextual search (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Tuning data for best results

Data preparation, automation, and management tools are still driven by people, and a lot of the DataOps focus is on providing key organizational staff with the right methods to correctly tune data so that AI makes a difference.

“A key part of DataOps is the people in the process,” Buckley said. “We have a lot of customers who are doing a lot of good things on the data science side, but trying to get the right data to the right people and do it fast is a huge problem.”

Hernandez often uses his own name to make the point. A Google search under “Daniel Hernandez” yields the name of a popular rap star as the lead result. A more informed search in the context of knowing that Hernandez was involved in technology for a leading enterprise firm would provide users with a far better result.

“AI-based techniques allow you to isolate who I am based on more features that you know about me so that you get me right,” Hernandez said. “If you can’t even start there, with whom you are transacting, you’re not going to have any hope of detecting fraud.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Data and AI Forum. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Data and AI Forum. Neither IBM Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE