{"id":3751,"date":"2017-04-18T12:25:15","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T19:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=wherenext&p=3751"},"modified":"2024-03-27T06:19:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T13:19:27","slug":"new-business-intelligence-emerges-geo-ai","status":"publish","type":"wherenext","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/publications\/wherenext\/new-business-intelligence-emerges-geo-ai","title":{"rendered":"A New Business Intelligence Emerges: GeoAI"},"author":441,"featured_media":5761,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[369852],"tags":[],"department":[476822],"wherenext-category":[],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-3751","wherenext","type-wherenext","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence--ai","department-data-and-ai"],"acf":{"short_description":"Executives have used basic forms of artificial intelligence to make better business decisions. Is greater insight just over the horizon?","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"In a country smaller than the state of New Jersey, where sand reigns and water hides, an inconvenience of modern life intrudes. Traffic is a growing problem in Kuwait. With a high ratio of vehicles to residents and a low ratio of roads to vehicles, traffic in the capital Kuwait City is worse than that of Atlanta, Boston, and Madrid.\r\n\r\nCongestion is unwelcome in any city looking to boost the productivity of its workforce, ensure the smooth functioning of commerce<\/a>, and improve quality of life. In Kuwait, officials work tirelessly to ensure quality of life. As part of that effort, the country\u2019s Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) released a hyper-local search engine called Kuwait Finder<\/a>, which connects citizens to the local goods and services they need. The application also provides turn-by-turn voice navigation to any business, with traffic information included.\r\n\r\nHowever, in the absence of reliable traffic sensors in the roads, understanding traffic conditions was a challenge. PACI asked a small team of Esri engineers to create a solution that would predict traffic conditions when no data existed, and deliver reliable traffic information to Kuwaiti citizens. Little did we know that the traditional techniques would fall short.\r\n\r\nOur first challenge was to establish what traffic looks like to a Kuwaiti driver. To get that info, we enlisted an application that let drivers tap on their phone to describe the conditions around them: no traffic, moderate traffic, or heavy traffic. We collected this information for more than a month.\r\n\r\nBased on those findings, we began programming the application to fill in traffic information gaps. At first, we used the traditional approach\u2014defining rules about traffic. This was easy until exceptions emerged\u2014like the surge of drivers on the first day of school or the unique traffic patterns during the month of Ramadan. We adjusted the algorithm to account for each exception, but it took hours of coding work. Then another exception would arise. And another. We were caught in quicksand, programming and tweaking, reprogramming and retweaking. We were playing the algorithmic version of Whac-A-Mole."},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":6151,"text":"I deeply believe that any business that doesn\u2019t make an investment in machine learning in 2017 will fall behind their competition.","author_name":"","author_profession_organization":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"During this time, I was reminded of Oren Harari\u2019s quote: \u201cThe electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles.\u201d To invent the light bulb, Thomas Edison used electricity, a new form of energy at the time, and we needed to do something similar in Kuwait. We needed a new approach. Luckily, we knew where to begin.\r\n\r\nArtificial Intelligence: From Simple to Sci-Fi<\/strong>\r\n\r\nBusiness leaders across most industries are growing familiar with artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a>, whether through IBM Watson\u2019s stint on Jeopardy!<\/em> or Google AlphaGo\u2019s recent mastery of the game Go. In fact, a survey by Narrative Science<\/a> found that 58 percent of enterprises are already using predictive analytics, which often draws on a simple form of AI."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"