Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

“Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal”. Is the evocative plea within the epic ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ as the HAL 9000 computer knows it’s being disconnected. 

A helpful reminder, like the unsinkable Titanic, that our faith in technology should be supported by our ability to recognize and manage risks of disruption. Perhaps there’s never a more important time to consider this given the rapid acceleration of AI adoption across all areas of business. Soon, for very good reason, AI solutions will be part of the fabric of every enterprise. But as businesses become more reliant on AI they become more reliant on the fuel for AI – Data.  

A business that relies on AI is a business that relies on data. AI models learn from data and apply what they have learned to fresh situations to produce outcomes and insights. Any issues with the data, and the models will not be able to perform well or generate trustworthy results. Data is of course at risk from bad actors, making security a constant priority, but disruption is perhaps more likely from less Machiavellian sources (outages, transformation errors, delays). Either way Data Resilience - protecting and ensuring data quality and availability can recover quickly from any disruptions – is a critical quality for successful AI solutions. 

Just like for Operational Resilience, having a digital representation of how your business actually works today is essential for ensuring data resilience. Using the BusinessOptix process repository: 

• Allows you to visualize the operational activities, resources deployed, systems used and data flows, all in one place.  
• This in turn makes it easy to identify the critical data elements and sources that your AI relies on.  
• Armed with this knowledge resilience and continuity analysts can use BusinessOptix simulation tooling to explore the impact of different disruption scenarios, enabling the best mitigation and recovery plans to be designed and tested without affecting production.  
• The traceability and collaboration functions within the platform serve as a robust resource for compliance verification with all stakeholders.

Peace of mind all round. 

As AI adoption grows we must increase our focus on data resilience - how to assure and manage. Tooling like BusinessOptix can help reduce the burden of managing data resilience, no matter how good the AI it’s only as good as the data. As HAL once boasted “No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error” which was true until it went wrong! 

To avoid it all going wrong, our process intelligence experts can show you how we can build the foundations you need for successful automation. Book a personalized demo to learn more today.