AI-enabled data analysis firm Unsupervised announces an expanded collaboration with AT&T
AT&T is continuing its telco AI ambitions after working with Unsupervised to identify more than $100 million “worth of opportunities which could be deployed across a variety of business units at AT&T,” according to a press release from Unsupervised.
Founded in 2017, Colorado-based Unsupervised specializes in “building an AI that can traverse data and represent complex data operations with simple abstractions. This ‘Linguistic Data Layer’ is far easier for [large language models] to use and allows for more complex and trustworthy agents,” according to the company.
With AT&T, Unsupervised is using its Data Analyst software. The agreement announced today will see that product used “in a wider capacity over the next year to analyze a variety of internal data sources to provide natural language query answers, AI-generated insights, and predictions to AT&T employees.”
AT&T’s Mark Austin, vice president of data science, said the company has “embraced the AI revolution by developed advanced generative AI tools like Ask AT&T…Unsupervised’s AI Data Analysts have delivered strong ROI—improving our key metrics while empowering our team with faster, smarter access to data insights.”
Ask AT&T was announced in June 2023. It’s built using OpenAI’s chatGPT LLM, and also incorporates AT&T’s proprietary data which resides in a dedicated Microsoft Azure tenant. Use cases include assistance in code development, translation of internal and customer documentation, call center support, HR queries and reducing employee meeting time.
IBM details “six uncomfortable truths” CEOs need to address as gen AI strategies take shape
IBM recently published the 29th edition of its C-suite Study, titled “6 hard truths CEOs must face,” and IBM’s General Manager of Global Industries Stephen Rose wrote a LinkedIn post grounding the report findings in telecoms. He wrote that the report could be an “uncomfortable read for many senior managers in the telecoms sector, especially for those that regard generative AI as some sort of performance panacea. Like so many industry leaders, telco CEOs are looking to rewrite their organizational playbook and accelerate the pace of change through the use of the latest technologies.”
The report found that 63% of telco CEOs AI-enabled productivity gains are worth taking on additional risk, and 51% “will take more risk than the competition to maintain their edge,” Rose wrote. “The risk/benefit equation is as old as time, but is the current appetite for risk among telcos wholly sensible or realistic?” The post goes on to delineate the titular uncomfortable truths. It’s a good read.
Bottomline, Rose wrote, “There isn’t a magic bullet—successfully adopting generative AI requires the implementation of a range of strategies and approaches. Importantly, use cases need to be aligned with your organization’s innate vision and objectives….Energizing the telecoms sector using generative AI as a driver for strategic change is only possible with an AI-ready workforce, the right technology, the best insights and the strongest partnerships.”
