The Changing Landscape
It’s no surprise that each of the companies across the Cloud Wars Top 10 is pushing artificial intelligence hard throughout each of their core applications. The demand for AI and its impact continues to grow even if the full understanding of it is not quite there. However, this isn’t stopping the large tech vendors from snapping up AI-focused, industry-specific companies and folding them into their larger industry cloud solutions. Each company is investing billions into changing the AI landscape of the future.
Since April 2021, many eyes have been on Microsoft, #1 on the Cloud Wars Top 10 list, and their $16 billion acquisition of Nuance. Microsoft’s goal is to increase the adoption of its Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare by infusing it with Nuance’s speech recognition and conversational AI software.
Google Cloud is also stepping up its game on the AI front. Recently, Google Cloud, #3 on the Cloud Wars Top 10, partnered with Kyndryl to bolster their industry focus on financial services. The aim is to equip financial institutions with data-driven insights to aid in managing risk in a highly regulated industry. Further, Kyndryl is helping customers migrate their ERP workloads from SAP to Google Cloud to deepen the available insights surfaced from AI, ML, and data analysis.
Another example is in the #10 spot on the Cloud Wars Top 10 list, IBM. They are looking to tackle AI by contributing to the global ethical AI efforts and standards. As more regulatory bodies craft regulatory and compliance policies for artificial intelligence, IBM is working to infuse standardized frameworks into its cloud solutions in an effort to stay competitive.
AWS has been focusing on artificial intelligence recently in the realm of AI for Good. In November 2021, AWS showcased an “AI for Good: Innovation Factory” session to provide startups, leveraging the AWS platform, an opportunity to tackle a goal on everyone’s mind: climate change. The intent was to surface solutions optimize energy consumption, build sustainable industrialization, and analyze climate risk.
The AI Cloud Wars Continue
In the recent 2022 Enterprise AI Impact Report, there are 5 key AI predictions that each of the Top 10 Cloud companies must address and adopt if they are to stay competitive. It is no longer enough to say you are going to do something; it’s now time for action.
- AI governance policies: Much like GDPR, artificial intelligence is getting a lot of scrutiny from government entities which will lead to more AI policies put in place.
- Democratized AI: Each of the top cloud companies has been deeply committed to the democratization of AI. But they can’t rest on their laurels. Not everyone has adopted AI, and many from the Board of Directors on down are still struggling with how to best use AI to their strategic advantage.
- AI for Good: Why is AI for Good such an important factor? AI has the power to assist humans in tremendous ways to solve challenging issues facing our planet. For example, the Microsoft Sustainability Cloud is empowering organizations across many industries to track and manage their emissions footprint.
- Embeddable AI: Low-code/no-code solutions abound. However, not all are providing easy-to-use AI components for citizen developers to leverage within their app solutions. The emphasis on creating these components helps to further democratize AI for everyone and is the catalyst for professional developers and citizen developers to collaborate.
- Ethical AI: Artificial Intelligence can’t provide insights without data. But data created by humans can be filled with intentional and unintentional biases which can quickly be exacerbated by AI. Right now, each of the Cloud Wars top companies realizes the need for a standardized framework to provide explainability and statutes to govern the usage.
What’s Next?
On the horizon for many is Collaborative AI in which AI and humans work as assistants to each other. This will force many people to reevaluate their expertise and adaptability to new technologies. Furthermore, how each of the Cloud Wars Top 10 cloud companies forge strategic partnerships with Acceleration Economy’s Enterprise AI Impact top companies will determine the future.
Companies will need guidance and real-world time to value to see that AI is no longer sci-fi. Additionally, it will require co-innovation and co-opetition across customers, partners, and tech vendors alike. This means that the competitive landscape will continue to evolve with AI fueling the cloud wars engine.
