Latin America. Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be the topic of the moment. Everyone talks about it, and there are more and more computer products that include some kind of AI-based technology, from machine learning algorithms to neural networks and deep learning. In this context, it is tempting to think of AI as another case of advertising bombardment, a fad that will pass in a few months. But for many reasons, AI is here to stay.
First of all, it's important to remember that AI isn't actually new. Since ancient history, artificial intelligence is a recurring theme in the history of literature. Modern AI – that is, computational – dates back to the 1950s when a computer learned to develop its own strategy for a board game. The 80s saw a wave of expert systems designed to support human professionals in various fields, while in the 90s and 2000s, AI-based systems were used for business-related data mining and medical research, among other things.
The rise of interest in AI today has its origin in two recent events. First, computing power and storage capabilities have become incredibly economical. In the 50s, for example, storage hardware that could hold 3.75 MBytes of data – enough storage space for just a current low-resolution photograph – was so large that it had to be moved in forklifts. Today, you can acquire a USB stick that can store thousands of photos in high resolution, and can be easily carried in your pocket, without the need for a forklift. At the same time, cloud service providers, especially so-called hyperscalers (companies with a large number of servers in their data centers), have made computing power and seemingly unlimited storage capacities available for uninterrupted commercial and private use.
The second major trend is the Internet of Things (IoT). A huge variety of devices – from mobile devices to factories and facilities – are now equipped with sensor technology. These sensors generate a large amount of ever-increasing data that needs to be processed and analyzed to take action.
The interaction of the generated data has become so complex that the consequences are imperceptible to the human eye. For example, an analysis of sporadic variations in a machine's behavior may indicate that maintenance will soon be necessary, a monitoring approach called "predictive maintenance." Today, these "needle in a haystack" data discoveries can be made much faster and more accurately using modern AI-based technology than when made by humans.
Computing power and storage will continue to become cheaper and more powerful. At the same time, it will escalate the need to analyze complex relationships between data. That's why AI will become increasingly entrenched in the management of computer technology and IoT.
In this context, AI is no longer limited to academic research or business trend analysis. For example, it can be used to manage and secure digital workspaces, as it can detect suspicious deviations from normal user behavior. Specialized, AI-based software will alert security teams, for example, as soon as users suddenly start downloading files from a server they have never accessed and for which they have no access rights. This type of behavior, which is potentially a sign that the end user's account has been intercepted, can be tremendously difficult to detect by manually filtering a log file; however, this is a routine task for AI-based security analytics software.
Similarly, AI will soon help improve the digital workspace user experience by correlating performance indicators across the chain of applications, services, and network connections that end users need for their day-to-day work. As with predictive maintenance tasks in a factory, AI will soon correlate and analyze all components of a digital workspace, and inform IT staff about an imminent degradation of service quality.
New software solutions and new cloud services will soon make AI a core asset: something that is embedded in all kinds of products and services, both in the consumer market and in the enterprise. However, for the foreseeable future, AI will not be able to replace the human being in computer security and administration, as it lacks human intuition. When a mother challenges her child by saying, "If all your friends threw themselves into a well, would you throw yourself too?" the child knows that the answer has to be "No." An artificial intelligence would answer, "Yes!" because if everyone does, it's surely okay. However, AI is very good at finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack", carrying out repetitive analyses of large volumes of data, very difficult tasks for humans.
That's why, despite their limitations, AI-based IT management tools are a breakthrough in making digital workspaces and cloud environments more secure, efficient, and reliable for the end user, while helping IT save time and money.
By Cristian Reilly, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Citrix
