Exploring the dynamic intersection of artificial intelligence and cloud integration unveils a rich tapestry of challenges and innovations in the tech industry.

A delicate balance must be struck between innovation and the potential chaos of tool sprawls, requiring guardrails to be set in place and important decisions to be made on the infrastructure layer. At VMware Inc., Tanzu is the answer to these complications, simplifying application management and building in one centralized hub, while incorporating generative AI, according to Betty Junod (pictured), vice president of marketing of modern apps and management at VMware.

“I think there’s going to be another wave around the developer enablement, because AI is out of the realm of just a few highly specialized data scientists, and now it’s available for everyone,” Junod said. “We’re going to have to sell the same problems again. How do you secure it? How do you control the chain of data? How do you then allow people to manipulate and use it effectively?”

Junod spoke with theCUBE industry analyst John Furrier at the “Supercloud 5: The Battle for AI Supremacy” event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the intricate landscape of AI development, the challenges of harmonizing diverse cloud environments and revolutionizing developer enablement.

Simplifying complexity

Tool sprawl is a big issue with companies across industries. Even Amazon Web Services Inc. is dealing with issues of tools not matching after a large reorganization. While everything may look easy on the front end, AI introduces complexity that many organizations simply aren’t ready for.

“The idea of having to attack the problem set; that is complex because it’s changed a paradigm in a way,” Junod said. “Once those puzzle pieces have been solved, you still need the ecosystems to come together and simplify it. You can’t put that burden on the customer.”

The conversation continued with the pair discussing data engineers and developers and how generative AI has encouraged even more collaboration between departments. While developers used to oversee application building, data engineers now hold the responsibility of gathering the correct data for any generative AI to work.

“When we, as an industry, shifted left, we shifted over all the stuff to do to people who may not be specialists in all the functional areas or be apprised of all of the policies at the company or government regulations,” Junod said. “That’s why we have specialists. When we shifted it left, what we should have done is create guardrails.”

At the end of the conversation, the pair discussed what they’re looking forward to the most and what they believe will shake up the tech landscape the most. Entrepreneur hype cycles are much shorter than they used to be as technology and innovation accelerate at a pace humanity struggled to keep up with. With AI, the industry has only just scratched the surface of what we can accomplish with the technology, according to Junod.

“Look at where we have large, unstructured data sets,” she said. “I think combining that with some of the movements around that we’ve had on IoT … like with all these connected homes … it’s still like industry silos,” Junod said. “I’m curious how, if we brought that together, along with the power of creation from developers … we’ve just unlocked a whole new level in this game.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Supercloud 5: The Battle for AI Supremacy” event:

Photo: SiliconANGLE