Enterprise AI platform DataRobot releases new AI features to drive greater business value

Boston-based enterprise AI platform provider DataRobot announced at the AI Experience Worldwide Virtual conference five enhancements they will be introducing to their enterprise AI platform with the aim of driving improved business value and taking enterprise AI to a new height.

The enhancements to DataRobots platform come at a convenient time with AI investments currently growing at a significant rate with a recent IDC report finding that spending on AI systems will increase by 31% in 2020 compared to spending in 2019.

The enhancements to the enterprise AI platform include a Use Case Value Tracker, Location AI, Champion/Challenger Models and Humble AI for MLOps, and Anomaly Detection for Time Series. The enhancements stem from the team developing and refining their software and approach to customer success for close to a decade.

Phil Gurbacki, SVP of Product and Customer Experience at DataRobot told The AI Journal via email what the new enhancements meant for the company and their mission to change the way businesses all over the world make their most important decisions by saying: “The new enhancements released this week by DataRobot underscore the company’s commitment to driving business value from AI. Many enterprises are using AI in some capacity, yet few are realising value. In fact, a recent survey conducted by BCG and MIT Sloan Management Review found that seven out of ten companies report minimal or no impact from AI deployments. DataRobot is addressing this challenge via its end-to-end enterprise AI platform which allows the largest organisations in the world to build, deploy, and manage machine learning projects.”

The enterprise AI platform provider raised an additional $206m in a Series E funding round led by Sapphire Ventures in September 2019 and has been using the funding capital to grow it’s market share while enabling the development of enhancing it’s platforms features.

DataRobots enterprise AI platform automates the end-to-end process for building, deploying, and maintaining AI and machine learning to allow businesses to run predictive models with ease and basic training.

By using the platform a business can potentially increasing their efficiency and lowering their costs through solutions such as reducing fraud losses, retaining customers, and setting accurate pricing for their products or services.

Gurbacki gave an overview of what existing and new customers can expect from the enhancements to their enterprise AI platform by saying: “Use Case Value Tracker allows users to manage and organise machine learning assets around use cases and understand the ROI of the predictions they make.  Location AI allows users to add geospatial data to their predictive models, allowing the models to understand the spatial relationships between observations. Humble AI provides the framework for users to set specific conditions to trigger in real-time when a model does not have confidence in a prediction. Champion/Challenger Models for MLOps allows users to test and compare production models with alternative models to see which performs best over time. And the Automated Time Series Anomaly Detection unlocks a wide range of new use cases for Automated Time Series customers by allowing users to detect anomalies without specifying a target variable, something that previously wasn’t possible.”

The range of industries the enterprise AI platforms solutions can be applied to so far includes banking, finance and FinTech, gaming, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, marketing, oil and gas, public sector, retail, robotic process automation, and sports.

DataRobot highlighted that most enterprises are using or evaluating AI in some capacity. According to a December 2019 survey conducted by O’Reilly, 85% of organisations are currently evaluating AI or using it in production.

DataRobot claims to be the first and only enterprise AI platform to address all 10 steps required to effectively automate the building and deployment of advanced AI applications.

Gurbacki added: “Additionally, DataRobot is committed to building the world’s most trusted AI platform and with each new release, we’re introducing new features to help you trust your AI. Our new Humble AI capability understands the limitations of deployed models and suggests alternative outcomes when the model has lower confidence or a lack of knowledge.”

Giving reasoning for developing these feature enhancements Gurbacki said: “We always take our customers’ feedback into consideration when building new features. In this case, we knew there was a gap between understanding the relationship between AI investments and the actual value customers achieve based on those investments. The new features specifically close that gap, providing deep insights into organising machine learning projects and understanding the ROI of the predictions they make. Location AI is a very strategic investment that we have invested in over the past 18 months and is the first time that an AI platform can automatically build and deploy spatially aware models.”

The enterprise AI platform has globally recognised brands on its roster list from various industries including Deloitte, Harvard Business School, Kroger, Humana, US Bank, Reckitt Benckiser, Australian Red Cross Blood Service, Boston Red Sox, Lending Tree, University of Michigan, PNC, Lenovo, and Nationwide to name a few.

DataRobot mentions that their users have built over a billion models, using hundreds of thousands of data sets, for thousands of different use cases.

DataRobot has a number of high profile partners and technology platform alliances to power and visualise the billions of data models including Alteryx, AWS, Looker, Tableau, and UiPath to name a few as well as value-added resellers, solution partners, and systems integrators.

“By gaining deeper insights into ROI and value from AI, customers will be able to see how their AI is performing and make improvements that will lead to long term value. We believe that understanding the business value from your AI investments is a critical gap in the industry — and one that we are closing with this release,” said Gurbacki.

DataRobot mentioned that as organisations continue to adopt AI and scale the technology enterprise-wide, it’s critical they have the support needed to experience optimal value. DataRobot mentioned that the new enhancements will aim to empower customers to derive and extract more value from their AI investments.