“AI technology can learn from and improve the process, making the integrations more reliable, more correct, faster and easier.”
What’s your role at the company?
“I serve as SnapLogic’s CTO, and I have been leading the product management team since we brought our core integration platform to market in 2013. I set product strategy and direction for the company, and lead our team of product managers, making sure they have what they need to operate at the top of their game.”
How did you get into the industry?
“My first move into the software industry was precipitated by my employer at the time automating operations. I was in computer operations and after getting experience with some early automation tools I quickly realized that there was something to this – something that was making a difference in the way we operated. That led me to seek out and start working at a software company as I wanted to get more directly involved.
Today, automation is much more prevalent across all industries, due in no small part to the availability of cloud infrastructure, the use of modern AI and ML tools, and the need for companies to be more efficient and effective with the resources they have. These developments driving the software industry to find new ways to develop solutions that help move things forward continues to excite me.”
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How can AI technology improve enterprise integration?
“Enterprise integration is inherently complex. AI technology can learn from and improve the process, making the integrations more reliable, more correct, faster and easier. There are repeatable tasks that can be automated, and intelligence that can be applied to make the process more efficient and effective. That said, enterprise integration and AI cannot lose sight of the business needs of the company. The application of AI to integration should be guided by who the users are, what the expected outcomes are, and how they drive the overall business forward.”
What should CIOs commit to when building and deploying an AI strategy?
“Build it, refine it, and refine it continuously. AI strategies are not ‘one-and-done.’ AI needs to be constantly evolving; otherwise it will decay and end up doing more harm than good very quickly.
Many think you build it, put it in place, and then you walk away and never have to worry. AI is based on data, which changes regularly, meaning that if you don’t update and evolve, you can set up your AI to fail, or even worse, to make bad decisions. As data changes, so too should your AI models and tools.”
How has the pandemic sped up enterprise adoption of AI? In what areas of the business was AI technology most applied to?
“Many organizations understood the role of AI and automation, and the promise that AI + automaton held, but the pandemic forced them to actually apply it. Companies were forced to become more strategic as workplace teamwork and collaboration completely shifted over the past couple of years. Augmenting workplace capabilities with AI has helped them be able to adapt and tackle new challenges brought on by the pandemic.
In addition, the pandemic has really forced companies to put a focus on where their revenue streams come from – and applying any resources to support new ways of capturing revenue. This also highlighted the importance of AI and automation to free up time and resources from day-to-day operations that could focus on net-new revenue opportunities. The new reality of work has highlighted the need for AI to help companies remain competitive, automate the mundane, get the most out of their teams – and uncover new opportunities for growth.”
We understand that SnapLogic’s AI capability, Iris, helps users automate and integrate applications and technologies easier. Could you share some details on how that works?
“Iris is a productivity enhancer that applies AI to automate highly repetitive, low-level development tasks, eliminating the data and application integration backlog that stifles most enterprise technology initiatives. At its core, Iris is a recommendation engine that uses machine learning to predict the next step in building a data pipeline for cloud, analytics, and digital initiatives. It uses advanced algorithms to learn from millions of metadata elements and billions of data flows, and then applies that learning to improve the speed and quality of integrations across data, applications, and business processes. It’s integrated as a part of our Intelligent Integration Platform and helps users be more efficient and effective as they work.
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You recently issued research that found that 81% of employees felt that AI technology helped improve their performance at work. Why do you suppose the number is so high? In what areas would these employees have come across AI in their workplaces?
“I believe it basically comes down to exposure. Early on, employees were skeptical of AI. They felt, without ever having come into contact with it in the workplace, that it would eliminate their jobs. In reality, they’ve found that it can enhance what they do on a daily basis by eliminating mundane tasks and freeing them up to focus on more strategic pursuits. The more they’ve been exposed to AI and see it in action, the more they’ve realized how much it can assist them. As AI is increasingly used to make better decisions and rack up productivity gains, they’ve gone from tentatively accepting AI to fully embracing it.
An example of how AI can improve the workplace can be seen in today’s current events as well. In the U.K., there’s currently a truck driver shortage, making it immensely difficult for goods to get from point A to point B in a timely fashion. If autonomous self-driving vehicles were a bit more advanced (it’s just around the corner), then the existing workforce would be augmented with these AI-driven automations that would free them up to concentrate on more critical matters. AI would make a real difference.”
The research also highlighted that 68% want their employers to invest in and roll out more AI tech for the workplace. With these numbers in mind, in what areas/what business functions could employers look to further apply AI to?
“Based on a combination of the recent research and what we’ve heard anecdotally in the field, I believe there are a couple of macro areas where AI can be most helpful in the workplace – applications that improve productivity, and applications that improve decision making. Employees and employers alike want a more efficient and more productive work day. Utilizing AI to eliminate time-intensive, repetitive tasks can take the burden off of employees at all levels and free them up to apply their skills to more important tasks. Additionally, AI that can help utilize data and analysis to accelerate time-to-insight can pay big dividends on an individual employee and company-wide level.”
What are the most promising AI use cases you see gaining steam in the near future — in business, society, or elsewhere?
“AI’s real value is to augment and enhance employees’ capabilities. In many ways, it’s similar to an exoskeleton that improves the way you do things, making you work faster and smarter. With AI, employees have access to a much wider range of knowledge than they normally would.
Climate change, for instance, is one area where AI can be a huge benefit. Frankly, to solve the climate change problem we need help from artificial intelligence – to crunch data, analyze solutions, and find better solutions, faster.
Healthcare is another area where AI is and will continue to be critically important. AI can help accelerate the world’s capabilities to solve problems, going beyond what is typically humanly possible. One need look no further than the fast creation of vaccines to help combat the pandemic for an example of this in action.”
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What kind of changes from the pandemic will be lasting?
“I believe that travel has been permanently changed. Every country has been forced to share data and truly understand who is coming in and out of their borders. As the pandemic and its aftermath continues this will continue to be important. Closely tied to this is the ability to access and share personal data. The future will bring us a common and consistent way for individuals to call up and present their data, as needed, whether they’re in San Francisco or Paris or Singapore. This will change everything from travel, to healthcare, to personal finance.”
Thank you, Craig! That was fun and we hope to see you back on itechnologyseries.com soon.
[To participate in our interview series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com]
Craig Stewart is the CTO at SnapLogic, where he is responsible for leading the company’s product strategy and launches, roadmap, and evangelism. Craig is an experienced manager of technical teams with many years of experience guiding the evolution of data and application integration technologies. Over his career, he has been a significant contributor to the development of several fast-growing technology companies, including Oracle, Cognos, Powersoft, Sybase, iMediation, and Sunopsis.
SnapLogic delivers intelligent automation that connects your enterprise and unlocks the power of your applications and data. The company’s leadership in intelligence-powered workflows and self-service integration capabilities make it fast and easy for organizations to manage all their application integration, data integration, and data engineering projects on a single, scalable platform.
Hundreds of Global 2000 customers – including Adobe, AstraZeneca, Box, GameStop, Verizon, and Wendy’s – rely on SnapLogic to automate business processes, accelerate analytics, and drive digital transformation. SnapLogic was founded by data industry veteran Gaurav Dhillon and is backed by blue-chip investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Capital One, Ignition Partners, Microsoft, Triangle Peak Partners, and Vitruvian Partners.
