As we explored in our previous blog, demand for AI-based solutions is growing year on year as organizations adopt and experiment with artificial intelligence to drive competitiveness and efficiency in a tough business environment.
We examined the key talent and skills gap challenge that companies, particularly small and medium enterprises, are facing as the explosion of AI projects outstrips the supply of qualified data experts required.
Now we want to go deep on another significant issue that has been identified by business leaders and consultants as a blocker to growth. And also show how Altilia can offset this challenge.
Managing Machine Learning (ML) Operations
When companies consider introducing new business process automation solutions, they often underestimate the complexity of managing the lifecycle of an AI project.
ML Ops are defined as a set of practices that combine the implementation of Machine Learning, DevOps, and Data Engineering models, with the goal of developing, releasing, monitoring, and the scaling into production high quality ML systems. This is done by leveraging organizational, cultural, and technological aspects that support the governance and automation of the ML model lifecycle.
Properly managing ML Ops is a major challenge even for large and structured companies.
In fact, according to a recent survey by the Artificial Intelligence Observatory of the Polytechnic University of Milan, out of a sample of 80 large companies operating in Italy that have already started AI projects, 71% say they have not yet introduced ML Ops as a structured practice.
Among the stated reasons for this delay stands out the lack of time they devote to AI initiatives compared to traditional business activities (43%) and the lack of internal expertise to manage ML Ops (33%), an issue which brings us back to the challenge discussed in our last blog.
Deloitte identified this ML Ops issue in their State of AI report: “Despite evidence that establishing clear processes and redefining roles to deliver quality AI results in improved outcomes, there has been little growth in the market in terms of adopting such practices, according to survey respondents.
In both the fourth and fifth editions, just one-third of respondents reported that their companies are always following MP Ops, redesigning workflows and documenting AI model life cycles.”
The ML Ops cycle in its complexity could be broken down in three distinctive parts:
- The Business process analysis/understanding part refers to the mapping of internal processes, systems, and any other key element to understand the “problem” to be solved: such as defining requirements, objectives, key outcomes, and formulating use case hypotheses for ML applications.
- The Data & Model Preparation part concerns the collection and refinement of data to train the ML model; the selection of the ML model with the best fit to solve the problem; the testing of different algorithms, features and hyperparameters; keeping track of all experiments, and maximizing code reusability.
- Continuous Operations & Improvement refers to the continuous update of the solution with each product release; the continuous training of the algorithm, with the storage and processing of new data to update the model; the continuous monitoring of the model to keep track of changes in performance and accuracy.
How can Altilia help to overcome the ML Ops challenge?
Altilia’s approach is offering a comprehensive platform to manage the whole AI implementation lifecycle with an end-to-end approach.
The platform is built overtime and improved upon experience by Altilia, to hide the complexity of managing ML Ops, and to simplify the training and the optimization of AI models over time.
This eliminates the need to dedicate an internal team (with limited experience) just to maintain an AI implementation project, to monitor its performance over time and to manage its infrastructure.
Additionally, the automation challenges faced by businesses are rarely completely unique. Using a platform approach, Altilia can replicate pre-tested use case specific solutions and adapt them to perfectly fit the needs of the customer.
This greatly simplifies the process analysis, reducing the uncertainty when defining implementation goals, a leading to a greater confidence about the expected outcomes.
Altilia simplifies data and model preparation by giving access to library of generalized pre-built AI models, including Large Language Models (LLMs) that can be trained and adapted, according to the customer’s specific requirements.
The training of models is simplified, thanks to our document annotation interface, that allows users to easily generate examples for the system to process.
Lastly, Altilia facilitates the monitoring and fine-tuning of AI models to increase their accuracy over time and prevent data drift.
Contact Altilia here to learn how our unique AI technology platform can help your organization overcome these challenges.
