

Prediction is becoming cheaper, faster, more automated and more ubiquitous in our lives, and we have artificial intelligence to thank for that.
AI is essentially a predictive technology. No matter what its algorithmic underpinnings, its core function is to make sophisticated inferences about what’s likely to happen based on myriad variables that have been distilled both from historical and real-time data. When it’s embedded in every device and refined continuously with fresh data, AI becomes a ubiquitous resource helping us all to anticipate what’s coming and do what’s necessary to keep our lives running smoothly.
As McKinsey Analytics stated in this recent study, AI’s transformative power is in its ability to drive down the cost of embedding predictive capabilities in everything we do. “As the cost of prediction continues to drop, we’ll use more of it for traditional prediction problems… because we can predict faster, cheaper and better. At the same time, we’ll start using prediction to solve problems that we haven’t historically thought of as prediction problems.”
That study was ringing in my mind this week while absorbing the news from two major AI-focused industry conferences: Microsoft Build and Google I/O. It occurred to me that the news that achieved the greatest traction in headlines was all around the embedding of predictive intelligence in smart devices, sensors and infrastructure.
Essentially, this week’s banner headline was the emergence of anticipatory assistance as a standard feature of the smart devices that are starting to rule our lives. In other words, the trend is now for all devices to perform dynamic look-aheads on fast-changing environmental conditions and then use those anticipatory insights to drive appropriate actions.
We can see that in the following aspects of this week’s key announcements, most of which pertained to new features in mobile devices:
To the extent that AI applications drive their predictions from deep historical data and continuously optimized statistical models, users will treat them as a natural adjunct of our organic intuitions. Going forward, the “A” in AI will, in many people’s minds, stand for anything but “artificial.”
If you need a new “A” word to plug into this acronym, anticipatory would make great sense. But so would assistive, augmented, anthropomorphic, accelerated, adaptive and automated. All of these describe the new world of AI-driven mobile applications that are continuously predictive and experiences that are, as a result, consistently optimized.
Here are Wikibon Chief Analyst Dave Vellante and me discussing these trends on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s video studio, late last year:
Support our open free content by sharing and engaging with our content and community.
Where Technology Leaders Connect, Share Intelligence & Create Opportunities
SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation serving innovative audiences and brands, bringing together cutting-edge technology, influential content, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — such as those established in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology, and AI. .
Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a powerful ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands, with a reach of 15+ million elite tech professionals. The company’s new, proprietary theCUBE AI Video cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.