Modern technology is evolving at what seems to be a natural progression. Initially, hype centered around big data and how to manage it. Now that the industry has its arms around collecting and storing vast amounts of data, the focus has shifted to advanced analytics that bring value to the enterprise, according to Mike Gualtieri (pictured), vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning are really forms of advanced analytics, so those have been very hot,” said Gualtieri. His areas of expertise are artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, and his recent publication titled “Artificial Intelligence: What’s Possible for Enterprises in 2017“ sheds light on the subject. The report’s subtitle sets the stage for what’s to come: “The Short Answer Is ‘Lots,’ But Don’t Let Your Hopes Get Too High.”

Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and George Gilbert (@ggilbert41), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, interviewed Gualteri at Spark Summit East 2017 in Boston to get his take on AI and the enterprise. (* Disclosure below).

The sci-fi version of AI is not available yet

Many enterprise customers want to jump on the AI trend. However, Forrester’s Research indicates we are not quite there.

“We did an AI survey last year, and we asked people, ‘What are you doing with AI?’ Fifty-six percent said they are researching it, and 19 percent said they are training a model,” Gualtieri illuminated. He continued by saying if you reword the question to ask about machine learning instead of AI, the results will show there are more adopters.

According to Gualtieri, AI comes in two flavors. First, there is pure artificial intelligence, the kind of technology seen in sci-fi movies. More relevant is pragmatic artificial intelligence, which is about building predictive models through technology, such as conversation APIs and image analysis.

“AI is really about the building blocks that companies already have, but [now they are] using a combination [of technologies] to create even more intelligent solutions,” he clarified.

During a session at Spark Summit, Gualtieri will be covering the topic “Artificial Intelligence: How Enterprises Can Crush it With Apache Spark.”

“Basically the prerequisite to AI is a very sophisticated and fast data pipeline. I think Spark gives you best of both worlds,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Spark Summit East 2017 Boston. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a media partner at the conference. Neither Databricks nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo by SiliconANGLE