Article
Intelligent IoT
Bringing the power of AI to the Internet of Things
The IoT is getting smarter. Companies are incorporating artificial intelligence—in particular, machine learning—into their Internet of Things applications and seeing capabilities grow, including improving operational efficiency and helping avoid unplanned downtime. The key: finding insights in data.
With a wave of investment, new products, and enterprise deployments, artificial intelligence is making a splash in the Internet of Things (IoT). The powerful combination of AI and IoT technology is helping companies avoid unplanned downtime, increase operating efficiency, enable new products and services, and enhance risk management. Companies crafting an IoT strategy, evaluating a potential new IoT project, or seeking to get more value from an existing IoT deployment may want to explore a role for AI.
AI provides the ability to wring insights from IoT data more quickly and accurately than traditional business intelligence tools. Using the two technologies to complement one another can provide significant advantages for businesses, such as:
- Avoiding costly unplanned downtime.
Predictive maintenance—using analytics to predict equipment failure ahead of time in order to schedule orderly maintenance procedures—can mitigate the damaging economics of unplanned downtime. Because AI technologies can help identify patterns and anomalies, and make predictions based on large sets of data, they are proving to be particularly useful in implementing predictive maintenance. - Increasing operational efficiency.
Machine learning can generate fast, precise predictions and deep operational insights. Other AI technologies can automate a growing variety of tasks. Companies such as Hershey and Google have used AI in combination with IoT sensor data to significantly cut operational costs. - Enabling new and improved products and services.
IoT technology coupled with AI can form the foundation of improved and eventually entirely new products and services. For instance, for GE’s drone and robot-based industrial inspection services, the company is looking to AI to automate both navigation of inspection devices and identification of defects from the data captured by them. This could result in safer, more precise, and up to 25 percent cheaper inspections for the client. - Enhancing risk management.
A number of applications pairing IoT with AI are helping organizations better understand and predict a variety of risks as well as automate for rapid response, enabling them to better manage worker safety, financial loss, and cyber threats.
For enterprises across industries, AI has the potential to boost the value created by IoT deployments, enabling better offerings and operations to give a competitive edge in business performance.
