Designing artificial intelligence is an exercise in cyclical maximizing and minimizing. We need supersized data sets to train algorithms, but those algorithms must zoom in on answers to very specific questions. Single domains contain high-quality, pertinent data for business use cases, but much training and iterating is needed to produce a reliable AI product.

Balancing big data with small problems led to the creation of Guru Technologies Inc. Co-founder and chief executive officer of Guru Technologies Inc., Rick Nucci (pictured), founded Boomi Inc., a unified cloud-native platform for range of end-to-end integration of digital ecosystems, which recently achieved FedRAMP Authorization. In his role at Guru, Nucci focuses on joining data and then dividing it into individualized knowledge pools for professional users.

“The recipe for good AI products that really do solve problems is that they’re very intentionally narrow and they’re very deep, because they’re gathering good training data and they’re built to solve a very specific problem,” he said. 

Nucci spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Boomi World event in Washington, D.C. They discussed how domain-specific AI makes real professionals’ jobs easier (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

AI secret sauce hidden in one customer’s data

The gold in very broad data sets is the material that relates to one industry, job role, or business concern, according to Nucci. The data one gets from a salesperson is very different than data from an HR pro or an engineer. This is why we seen an “unbundling” of data and services to better serve specific user types.

“The best AI you’re going to build is only going to be what you can derive from one customer set of data,” Nucci said.

Keeping sensitive data secure through this slicing and dicing is paramount. Guru isolates each companies’ knowledge and IP so that they can never leak into one another. This is the data into which it can drill to produce highly specific AI.

“But there are things about organization and structure and tagging and learnings you can get that are not sensitive that do make the product better from an AI perspective the more people that use it,” Nucci explained. 

Combining big and small data delivers powerful AI assistance to users like customer-service agents, Nucci pointed out. The knowledge is there in front of them — there is no need to go searching for it.

“Guru can be anticipatory over time and start to say, ‘Hey, you probably want to talk to him about this,’ and bring that answer to you. It’s because we live where you work,” Nucci stated. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Boomi World event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Boomi World 2019. Neither Boomi Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Photo: SiliconANGLE