Augmented AI – the synergy of technology and people power.
Iris Cedon in Artificial Intelligence, industrial real estate, New In Okapi, PropTech Artificial Intelligence has become a part of our everyday lives: it is used to power many of the systems that form the backbone of modern living, from social media applications to retail websites, to the suggestions that come up every time we log in to our online streaming accounts.
Businesses have long been savvy as to the importance of including AI systems into their processes and workflows, and there are a multitude of ways in which this is transforming the world. You can read more about this in the blog post “AI doesn’t replace you”
Those at the forefront of AI technology have come to expect that much more from the already amazing capabilities of a partnership between people and technology, and this has led to a new generation of AI systems. Popularly known as augmented AI or augmented intelligence, these innovative AI engines allow a true synergy between computer technology and those working with them.
So what is the difference between traditional AI and augmented AI? AI is defined as machine learning; the computer will process thousands of terabytes of information at speed, and use the information to derive patterns and predict outcomes. Augmented AI reintroduces humans into the process, so that each can contribute their best attributes.
Kurt Cagle in an article for Forbes Magazine, wrote about Augmented AI in practise, and how the application Grammarly is using the technology not only to power their own system, but to simultaneously help users improve their own skills as well:
“Grammarly is the face of augmentative AI. It is AI because it uses some very sophisticated (and likely recursive) algorithms to determine when grammar is being used improperly or even to provide recommendations for what may be a better way to phrase things. It is augmentative because, rather than completely replacing the need for a writer, it instead is intended to nudge the author in a particular direction, to give them a certain degree of editorial expertise so that they can publish with more confidence or reduce the workload on a copy editor.”
Augmented AI is an essential part of the CRE risk-assessment process here at Okapi. Our AI engine is capable of processing masses of data each day in order to determine asset risk, and it does so to a very high level of accuracy. There are, however, certain factors which the system flags up as needing further investigation by a (human!) analyst, in particular events which are sudden or dramatic in nature, such as a chapter 11 announcement, mergers-and-acquisitions, or even a global pandemic. When the Okapi engine receives information from one of these categories from one of our external data suppliers such as Experian Data Axle or S&P, it is too important to be viewed as a stand-alone factor and needs to be considered in context before the most accurate risk-level can be ascertained. A human is capable of making judgements where the computer is not, and our analysts can provide an interpretation of the weight and relevance of these flagged factors, which enables Okapi to have confidence in the accuracy of our risk predictions. The final part of the augmentation process is that the results are fed back into the Okapi system so that the computer has even more data on which to base future predictions, allowing the accuracy of the data to trend even higher.
Tom Gruber, one of the Siri design team, suggests that a better name for Augmented AI might be “Humanistic AI”, and he offers an interesting thought: what if we have been asking ourselves the wrong question, when we ask “how smart can we make our machines?” He suggests that a more appropriate question would be “how smart can the machine make us?”
And when we turn it around, just think what becomes possible!
You can discover for yourself just how remarkable augmented AI can be for your own CRE risk assessment with a free no-obligation trial. Contact our sales team today at [email protected] and you will receive a full report for up to 10 of your tenants.
