NASSCOM Insights
Cognitive RPA – Road to Intelligent Automation
Rise of cognitive RPA RPA is being implemented widely across businesses to automate back-end processes, and has been able to deliver on promised benefits. While most of the RPA implementations so far have been for manual, high-volume and repetitive processes, advent of cognitive technologies such as AI, ML, etc., are enabling automation of ’business critical’ processes. RPA when combined with cognitive technologies is considered as a tool for ‘Intelligent Automation’ and is becoming an enabler for value-centric business drivers. RPA vs Cognitive RPA How does it work? A cognitive RPA system leverages existing enterprise information, which could be both structured as well as unstructured, to create models that empower intelligent decisions. In fact, working with unstructured data is one of t...
CONVERSATIONAL AI IS PROVING TO BE HELPFUL, BUT CAN IT ALSO BE DANGEROUS?
For the average person, conversational AI is not a term that is frequently encountered in our daily lives. Yet, for what the term encompasses, we deal with one form of conversational AI or the other, almost every day. From chatbots sorting out issues in apps like Zomato and Uber, to smart assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant, conversational AI is the technology driving the modern solutions to our modern problems. Don’t feel like getting up to switch on the lights? Tell Alexa to do it for you! Food not getting delivered? Speak to the Zomato Chat bot for an answer! And while it may seem and look rather dumb talking to a machine, we are being amused and entertained by the smart speakers in our living room, asking it do anything from telling our kids bedtime stories to buying things onli...
Voice-based Conversations – Hype or Reality
NASSCOM report titled Voice-based Conversations – Hype or Reality discusses how proliferation of smart speakers and increasing use of voice searches over smartphones is leading to the growth of voice-enabled solutions across consumers and enterprises. The report highlights some of the existing and potential use cases, application areas, challenges, importance for Indian users, etc. It also presents some actionable recommendations for companies engaged in providing solutions in this domain Introduction – Voice-based conversations While text-based conversational solutions have hit the mainstream, voice-based solutions are still in a nascent stage. However, there is a shift from text-based bots to voice-based solutions Market Landscape The market is driven primarily by proliferati...
Is Voice is the next conversational interface?
Voice technology is for everyone Last week I booked a cab for myself. The moment I stepped in, the driver asked about the destination, which I told. After that he softly repeated the destination, but it was not to confirm from me. I noticed that he spoke into his smartphone, which understood his Indian English accent, and displayed the route for the destination on the screen. I was amazed to see this because as a millennial I still don’t use voice to converse with devices, but the driver who was in his early 50s was doing this effortlessly. Probably I am not the right user, but this is a perfect example that reflects how voice-technology is making in-roads and is being used by people who barely know how to operate a smartphone or any other smart device. Voice technology could be disruptive...
Voice-based solutions are everywhere – Its time to realize their potential
Voice-based solutions are for everyone I was watching TV over the weekend when my daughter, who is eight years old, came to me and asked if she could have my phone for some time. Assuming she would want to talk to her grandmother, I gave her my phone. After a while I could hear her talking to someone but it was definitely not her grandmother. From a distance I could hear a lady on the other side talking to my daughter in British English accent. A bit worried, and to check if she had mistakenly called someone in the UK, I entered her room. I was surprised to see that she was talking to Google Assistant on my phone and was using it quite well to get information related to her school homework. I was impressed and asked her who taught her to use Google Assistant, to which she innocently answer...
B2B eCommerce – No Leisure Shopping
The other side of the eCommerce coin Indian eCommerce story appears to be no less than a dream run, well positioned to contribute ~4% towards country’s GDP by 2022. Over the years, the eCommerce market has been overshadowed by B2C eCommerce in terms of popularity among masses. However, very little has been spoken about B2B eCommerce, which is far bigger than the B2C eCommerce and is a fast emerging space. Source: Strategic Review: IT-BPM Sector in India 2019: Decoding Digital Unlike B2C eCommerce, the market is led by categories such as consumer durables, mobile accessories, apparels, home furnishing, healthcare, automotive and construction and industrial supplies. The market is also characterised by difference between the purchases which in case of B2B eCommerce includes rational buying d...
Did you know……
By Jibu Elias A machine-learning algorithm created at Carnegie Mellon was able to predict heart attacks four hours in advance with 80% accuracy. Another platform developed by AIME had a 87% accuracy in predicting dengue fever outbreaks three months in advance. Now they hope to similarly target other diseases such as Ebola and Zika. (Deloitte report) By 2020, the top five cloud IaaS/PaaS providers will control 75% of the market,up from 50% in 2016. In fact by 2020, **over 80% of the G500 will be digital services suppliers through Industry Collaborative Cloud (ICC) platforms. (IDC) Intel and supercomputer manufacturer Cray are set to unveil the world’s fastest supercomputer called Aurora in 2021, which is being built from bottom up to run AI applications at unprecedented scales. Currently, t...
White House Immigration Announcement – Overview and initial implications
Overview – On Thursday, May 16th 2019, President Trump delivered a Rose Garden address at the White House on his vision to modernize America’s immigration system The immigration reform proposal was developed by Jared Kushner, President’s advisor President Trump’s speech reflects the framework that was developed by Kushner: it is light on specific details and the President said he was leaving it up to Congress to develop the specific legislative language Implications – There is no actual plan yet. The President mapped out a broad blueprint and called on Congress to fill in the details and write a specific piece of legislation The blueprint focuses largely on “reforming” America’s permanent immigration system and moving away from being predominantly a family-based system to a merit-based poi...
eCommerce effect – Shopping then and now!
eCommerce effect – Shopping then and now! Growth of eCommerce Online shopping is not new to the Indian context. It has gained exponential growth in the country due to benefits such as convenience of shopping from home, easy payments, delivery and returns, wide range of products available at competitive prices, and deals and discounts being offered by eCommerce players. According to NASSCOM, the overall Indian eCommerce market grew ~24% in 2018, with strong growth across all segments, to reach USD43 billion. It is expected to grow ~2.5 folds to reach USD106 billion by 2020. eCommerce growth by segment (2018E) * Others includes financial services, consumer services and digital content Source: Strategic Review: IT-BPM Sector in India 2019: Decoding Digital What has changed for consume...
Breakthrough technologies for 2019 – the Bill Gates list
by Sumeet Swarup In January, MIT Technology Review asked Bill Gates to pick breakthrough technologies for 2019 that he is watching. Here is what he picked: Robot dexterity – robots are teaching themselves to handle the physical world. Currently robots on assembly lines can repeatedly pick up, move, and place components in desired places – a fixed motion that can be pre-programmed. Sometime in the future, a robot hand will be able to mimic a human hand to perfection, but that’s still far away. Currently a robot hand in San Francisco has learnt how to manipulate an object on its own through virtual trial and error. The hand has learnt how to grasp, turn and flip a toy building block in its fingers. New wave nuclear power – new types of nuclear reactors make energy produced through fission (s...
