Big Data Management
Microsoft | September 22, 2023
AI models rely heavily on vast data volumes for their functionality, thus increasing risks associated with mishandling data in AI projects.
Microsoft's AI research team accidentally exposed 38 terabytes of private data on GitHub.
Many companies feel compelled to adopt generative AI but lack the expertise to do so effectively.
Artificial intelligence (AI) models are renowned for their enormous appetite for data, making them among the most data-intensive computing platforms in existence. While AI holds the potential to revolutionize the world, it is utterly dependent on the availability and ingestion of vast volumes of data.
An alarming incident involving Microsoft's AI research team recently highlighted the immense data exposure risks inherent in this technology. The team inadvertently exposed a staggering 38 terabytes of private data when publishing open-source AI training data on the cloud-based code hosting platform GitHub. This exposed data included a complete backup of two Microsoft employees' workstations, containing highly sensitive personal information such as private keys, passwords to internal Microsoft services, and over 30,000 messages from 359 Microsoft employees. The exposure was a result of an accidental configuration, which granted "full control" access instead of "read-only" permissions. This oversight meant that potential attackers could not only view the exposed files but also manipulate, overwrite, or delete them.
Although a crisis was narrowly averted in this instance, it serves as a glaring example of the new risks organizations face as they integrate AI more extensively into their operations. With staff engineers increasingly handling vast amounts of specialized and sensitive data to train AI models, it is imperative for companies to establish robust governance policies and educational safeguards to mitigate security risks.
Training specialized AI models necessitates specialized data. As organizations of all sizes embrace the advantages AI offers in their day-to-day workflows, IT, data, and security teams must grasp the inherent exposure risks associated with each stage of the AI development process. Open data sharing plays a critical role in AI training, with researchers gathering and disseminating extensive amounts of both external and internal data to build the necessary training datasets for their AI models. However, the more data that is shared, the greater the risk if it is not handled correctly, as evidenced by the Microsoft incident. AI, in many ways, challenges an organization's internal corporate policies like no other technology has done before. To harness AI tools effectively and securely, businesses must first establish a robust data infrastructure to avoid the fundamental pitfalls of AI.
Securing the future of AI requires a nuanced approach. Despite concerns about AI's potential risks, organizations should be more concerned about the quality of AI software than the technology turning rogue.
PYMNTS Intelligence's research indicates that many companies are uncertain about their readiness for generative AI but still feel compelled to adopt it. A substantial 62% of surveyed executives believe their companies lack the expertise to harness the technology effectively, according to 'Understanding the Future of Generative AI,' a collaboration between PYMNTS and AI-ID.
The rapid advancement of computing power and cloud storage infrastructure has reshaped the business landscape, setting the stage for data-driven innovations like AI to revolutionize business processes. While tech giants or well-funded startups primarily produce today's AI models, computing power costs are continually decreasing. In a few years, AI models may become so advanced that everyday consumers can run them on personal devices at home, akin to today's cutting-edge platforms. This juncture signifies a tipping point, where the ever-increasing zettabytes of proprietary data produced each year must be addressed promptly. If not, the risks associated with future innovations will scale up in sync with their capabilities.
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Big Data Management
Business Wire | October 04, 2023
Teradata (NYSE: TDC) and ActionIQ announced today a new joint-offering for marketing and customer experience (CX) activations for Teradata VantageCloud customers. This new offering, which includes integration with VantageCloud and ActionIQ, is now complete and ready for customers. The collaboration highlights Teradata’s open and connected ecosystem, which includes a strong partnership with ActionIQ to leverage the companies’ collective expertise in advertising and marketing technology for CX.
Together, the two companies aim to democratize access to customer data across the enterprise while providing technical teams with enhanced control. By combining the harmonized data approach and advanced analytics of Teradata VantageCloud with the full capability of ActionIQ’s modern customer experience apps, businesses can gain a comprehensive 360-degree view of customers, foster more meaningful engagements, and deliver superior experiences.
The partnership between Teradata and ActionIQ is a win for customers interested in enhancing their customer experience and driving profitable growth, said Lisa Stewart, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partners and Alliances at Teradata. With ActionIQ's expertise in advertising and marketing technology for CX, combined with Teradata's complete cloud analytics and data platform, businesses can unlock the full potential of their customer data, enhance agility, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
“Teradata's unmatched legacy in data analytics and ActionIQ's marketer-friendly CDP (customer data platform) position us to redefine customer experiences," said Tasso Argyros, ActionIQ CEO and Founder. "Our shared vision is to empower businesses, enabling faster innovation, better decisions, and genuine customer connections.”
With Teradata VantageCloud, the complete cloud analytics and data platform, and ActionIQ, businesses can unlock faster innovation, better decision-making, and enhanced customer experiences, particularly for AI and ML. ActionIQ’s unique composable architecture offers easy-to-use, self-service data access to marketers while pushing queries into VantageCloud for the best of both worlds in terms of performance, enterprise scale and security. This allows business teams to gain direct, but controlled, access to data, enabling self-serve use cases through seamless and scalable integrations with owned and paid channels. IT and data teams will benefit from zero data latency, scalable governance, and worry-free integrations, freeing up resources previously spent on managing ever-changing requirements. This partnership is designed to future-proof acquisition marketing strategies, increases loyalty, and improves retention for business teams.
ActionIQ will offer a range of solutions to Teradata VantageCloud customers:
ActionIQ Audience Center is an audience segmentation tool enabling effective management of audience data for targeted marketing campaigns and personalized customer interactions.
Real-Time CX allows for real-time access to customer profiles and behavior for personalized customer experiences.
IdentityPlus provides comprehensive identity resolution capabilities that deliver deeper insights into customer identities and behaviors, resulting in personalized experiences and improved targeting.
Journey Orchestration offers a drag-and-drop canvas for building multi-step, multi-channel customer journeys. As a result of this new partnership, all of these applications can now map directly to Teradata VantageCloud.
ActionIQ will join Teradata at the Teradata Possible event in Orlando on October 2-4 to share more details with customers.
About ActionIQ
ActionIQ is a new kind of composable customer data platform for enterprise brands who want to grow faster and deliver meaningful experiences for their customers. Built for data in constant motion, ActionIQ’s unique composable architecture gives marketers easy and secure ways to activate data anywhere in the customer experience while keeping data securely where it lives. Unify data from any source, build smart audiences, resolve customer identities, and design personalized interactions that unlock revenue across the entire customer lifecycle – all while helping technical teams extend existing technology investments to manage data governance, costs, and performance. Enterprise brands such as Albertsons, Atlassian, Bloomberg, DoorDash, HP, and many more use ActionIQ to drive growth through extraordinary customer experiences. Learn more at actioniq.com.
About Teradata
At Teradata, we believe that people thrive when empowered with better information. Our best-in-class cloud analytics and data platform delivers the harmonized data and trusted AI/ML organizations need for confident decision-making, faster innovation, and impactful business results. See how at Teradata.com.
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Big Data Management
WebWire | September 29, 2023
SAS, a leader in AI and analytics, is helping to revolutionize the use of clinical trial data so new medicines can be delivered to patients faster than before. After a thorough evaluation, SAS has been chosen by global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to help increase efficiency and drive automation in the delivery of statistical analyses for clinical and post-approval submissions to regulatory authorities, via SAS’s cloud-based software and technologies.
SAS will support the redesign of clinical and patient data flow by delivering industry-leading analytics and AI, manage changing trial designs in a fast-evolving regulatory environment, enable data re-use, and help accelerate reporting and submission timelines. It will also deliver increased capacity, automation, interoperability, and flexibility to bring in and analyze diverse and novel patient data sources – such as those coming from wearables, sensors and precision medicine – as part of the submissions process.
This will be achieved by supporting the analysis and reporting phases with SAS® Life Science Analytics Framework and SAS® Viya®, a scalable and powerful cloud-based industry platform enabling swift decision-making regardless of data volumes or complexity using modern cloud technologies. This has the potential to provide significant productivity gains by driving faster time to market and reduced IT costs. The SAS and AstraZeneca partnership will enable teams across the organization to collaborate and increase clinical research innovation.
Christopher J Miller, VP Biometrics at AstraZeneca, said, This partnership with SAS supports the transformation of how we use clinical data to support our patient-centric approach and focus on getting medicines to patients faster than ever before. It will also allow us to introduce new ways of working and embrace new technologies and trial models to accelerate our portfolio.
Bryan Harris, SAS Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, said, “I’m delighted that SAS is building on the strong relationship it has had with AstraZeneca over many years by being part of this transformation program. The work they do positively impacts the lives of millions of people around the world.
“This is exciting because we have solidified a great foundation between our companies, but we also recognize we are just scratching the surface. We pay attention to technology and the advancements in AI, and we thrive on thinking through how our technology blended with AstraZeneca’s expertise and insight can create new medical solutions for their customers.”
About SAS
SAS is a global leader in AI and analytics software, including industry-specific solutions. SAS helps organizations transform data into trusted decisions faster by providing knowledge in the moments that matter. SAS gives you THE POWER TO KNOW®.
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