In my discussion with Carm Taglienti of Insight EnterprisesNSIT., I learned a lot about the viability of AI and how its application can help retailers successfully assist customers. AI is new, important, and needs to be understood.
Insight Enterprises is a tech solutions integrator. It helps clients navigate complex IT challenges and find the most productive ways to harness the power of their technology to deliver their goals .Insight has now launched a new service to help to unlock the vast potential of generative Al tools to drive value to clients’ businesses. I questioned Mr. Taglienti, who is a distinguished engineer and an adjunct professor at Northeastern University, about the specifics that relate to retailing.
It’s important to note that Insight works with specialty stores, department stores, convenience stores and well-known e-commerce companies. Mr. Taglienti cited several areas where this technology can be helpful – including making it easier to ensure security, track customer lifetime potential, monitor theft and merchandise demand, and much more. Through installations of sensors, cameras, and other tools, much of the customer’s behavior can be observed and acted on.
Insight has taken decades of experience building data solutions and assembled the Lens Accelerator. The Insight Lens suite of accelerator products that includes Lens for Gen AI , a generative AI solution. It can be customized for each client’s needs. This modern platform can be deployed for use in to any store format. It is a foundation for any migration or modernization analysis initiative, including a modern data platform, a data science platform or a reporting foundation and enables users (often data scientists) to integrate and scale the data collected so more value can be gleaned. Importantly, the integrated data is then implemented in a fully secure way which meets or exceeds most compliance standards.
Mr. Taglienti acknowledged that there are many people who question the accuracy of AI procedures and worry that AI could make erroneous decisions that could be affecting the course of someone’s life. He responded by explaining that the model is very young and the practical use of Generative AI is still in its infancy. Nonetheless, he sees the potential for great benefits as refinements evolve.
The Insight Lens for a generative AI approach is based on four key foundational pillars that combine to drive clients’ data-driven transformation.
1. Creating a secure, scalable enterprise instance of generative AI within the client’s environment.
2. Identifying and prioritizing high value use cases, leveraging Insight expertise across client value chains.
3. Leveraging the Insight Lense platform, which uses a metadata driven architecture to ingest data from multiple enterprise sources and process it into a modern data warehouse.
4. Designing, building and deploying infrastructure to support generative AI platform.
“Insight is an established leader in data and AI. The Insight Lens framework is unique and can quickly ingest terabytes of enterprise data. It is impressive since it can integrate data from across dozens of sources into a central repository for improved visibility, analysis, and business value. The addition of generative AI capabilities will fast-track a client’s ability to accelerate data-driven transformation” said Matt Jackson, CTO of Insight.
POSTSCRIPT: As AccentureACN, a professional services company specializing in information technology services and consulting describes it, “This is a new era for everyone. The technology underpinning ChatGPT will transform work and reinvent business.” They say that “everything from science to business to society itself will be transformed. The positive impact on human creativity and productivity will be massive. Companies will have to radically rethink how work gets done. The focus must be on evolving operations and training people as much as on technology. To capitalize, companies need a strong digital core and investments in people to reap the value of AI in a responsible way.” This is a strong statement, and Insight is on the forefront to help needy clients.
