Cognitive technologies: The real opportunities for business

The Course

Artificial intelligence (AI) may sound like science fiction, but it is real, and becoming increasingly important to companies in every sector. The field of artificial intelligence has produced a wide variety of "cognitive technologies" that simulate human reasoning and perceptual skills, giving businesses entirely new capabilities and enabling organizations to break prevailing tradeoffs between speed, cost, and quality.

Aimed at a general business audience, this course demystifies artificial intelligence, provides an overview of a wide range of cognitive technologies, and offers a framework to help you understand their business implications. Some experts have called artificial intelligence "more important than anything since the industrial revolution." That makes this course essential for professionals working in business, operations, strategy, IT, and other disciplines. Throughout the course, participants will build a knowledge base on cognitive technologies to equip them to engage in discussions with colleagues, customers, and suppliers and help them shape cognitive technology strategy in their organization.

During the course, participants will learn from leading thinkers in the field including Professor Eric Nyberg, Professor and Director, Master's Program in Computational Data Science in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and Professor Tom Davenport, President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a Fellow of the MIT Center for Digital Business, and senior advisor to Deloitte Analytics. They will help address the questions:

• What is artificial intelligence, and how did the field attain the importance it has today?
• What are cognitive technologies? Dig below the surface and gain a basic understanding of the technologies that simulate language understanding, seeing, and reasoning.
• How will cognitive technologies impact my business? Explore the types of applications that cognitive technologies may be suited for, and discover a framework that can help you conceptualize whether and where you might deploy them in your organization.
• What is the impact of cognitive technologies on work? Cut through the hype and understand what leaders and workers need to know now to prepare for the changes these technologies will bring to work, workers, and organizations.
• What does the future hold for cognitive technologies? David, Eric and Tom discuss the technological, legal and ethical factors that may influence the evolution and further adoption of cognitive technologies.

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More Information

The Instructor

David Schatsky

Deloitte University Press

Deloitte University Press publishes original articles, reports and periodicals that provide insights for businesses, the public sector and NGOs. Our goal is to draw upon research and experience from throughout our professional services organization, and that of coauthors in academia and business, to advance the conversation on a broad spectrum of topics of interest to executives and government leaders.

Deloitte University Press is an imprint of Deloitte Development LLC.