Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Big Data and Analytics

    Aera Technology’s Cognitive OS Helps Fine Tune Business Operations

    By
    David Needle
    -
    August 1, 2018
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      Aera AI Technology

      MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—For all the development work that’s been done on enterprise applications that use artificial intelligence to analyze corporate data, the CEO of Aera Technology believes companies aren’t gaining many insights into how well their businesses are performing.

       “There’s been a lot of work done to help companies process information, but there hasn’t been any work done to help them think,” Fred Laluyaux, president and CEO of Aera Technology told eWEEK at a briefing here at his company’s headquarters.

      Aera Technology is trying to change that by deploying a cloud-based cognitive operating system that is designed to analyze operational data to show corporate decision makers how they can take actions that improve business performance.

      To do this, Aera takes a different approach that applies proprietary data crawling, machine learning and artificial intelligence functionality it has built on the IP that Shariq Mansoor, founder of FusionOps, has developed. FusionOps rebranded as Aera about a year ago. Mansoor, now the CTO of Aera, developed technology that enables prescriptive analysis of supply-chain operations.

      Company is Coming Out of Stealth

      Aera has kept a low profile since its startup in June 2017, but it’s now coming out of stealth mode and talking more publicly about its technology and customer deployments. The company’s cognitive OS gives users real-time recommendations, predicts outcomes, and can take autonomous actions, such as making changes to supply chain operation and performance. 

      Laluyaux said a major consumer packaged goods customer is using Aera to determine the best time to run promotions and other product distribution decisions. While there is a dashboard and screens to examine various aspects of data that’s being collected across a company’s Enterprise Resource Planning systems, Aera also has a Siri-like mobile voice app that responds queries. 

      Aera marketing executive Ram Krishnan said the system is like having a person that is constantly watching the activity in your company’s computer systems on your behalf. 

      How a Conversation With Aera Might Go

      Krishnan started a conversation with the Aera application to demonstrate how an executive at a multinational company might use the system: 

      Ram: “What’s my revenue this month?” 

      Aera: “On track revenue forecast is $1.25 billion against a $1.2 billion target.”           

      Ram: “What’s my backlog in Latin America?”

      Aera: Backlog has risen to $39 million largely due to finished goods shortage of logo products. I found excess inventory in Mexico. If the excess is shipped to Brazil an estimated $32 million of the backlog can be converted to revenue.”

      Ram: “Can you take care of that for me?”

      Aera: “I am processing the action now and will let you know when it’s completed.”

      Crawls and Indexes Corporate Data for Insights

      Of course this was a demonstration. Actually deploying Aera requires the technology to crawl and index corporate data along with an interview process where the system asks questions about how business decisions are made. But Laluyaux said Aera has been able to show customers insights from their huge repositories of data that they had no idea they could access.

      “In this demo, we’re showing you two to three years of historical data from one of our customers that [consists of] 2.4 billion rows of data we sucked in from their ERP systems without any degradation to the live system,” he said.

      “All the crawling and processing took 47 hours and in that time, behind the scenes, we are working on that data, harmonizing it and enriching it so that with one click you can roll it up and get a visualization of what’s going on.”

      Constellation Research analyst Ray Wang said Aera has created a “cognitive layer” that augments an enterprise’s existing systems and offers a way to orchestrate all the “headless microservices” and ERP systems that typically don’t communicate with each other.  

      Proactive Recommendations

      Wang said he’s particularly impressed by the system’s ability to proactively make recommendations. “A human expert that’s been in the field for 30 years can see certain patterns, but generally humans don’t see the kind of big data patterns that a system like Aera can spot easily,” Wang told eWEEK.

      “We’ve had an era of advances in transactions, CRM, customer engagement and experience,” he added. “With cognitive apps Aera is able to figure out the next-best action like change my supply chain orders, marketing plan or who the next best customers are.”  

      Wang also said there’s a simple reason Aera is targeting large companies in areas such as pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and the energy sector. “Large enterprises have large data sets, and the bigger they are the easier it is to see patterns. If the data is too small, like if a company sells a thousand orders a month, the data isn’t going to tell you nearly as much as if you sell a thousand units a day.”

      Aera said its current list of customers includes a number of large companies, such as pharma giant Merck. 

      David Needle
      Based in Silicon Valley, veteran technology reporter David Needle covers mobile, bi g data, and social media among other topics. He was formerly News Editor at Infoworld, Editor of Computer Currents and TabTimes and West Coast Bureau Chief for both InformationWeek and Internet.com.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Applications

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      Applications

      Kyndryl’s Nicolas Sekkaki on Handling AI and...

      James Maguire - November 9, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nicolas Sekkaki, Group Practice Leader for Applications, Data and AI at Kyndryl, about how companies can boost both their AI and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      IGEL CEO Jed Ayres on Edge and...

      James Maguire - June 14, 2022 0
      I spoke with Jed Ayres, CEO of IGEL, about the endpoint sector, and an open source OS for the cloud; we also spoke about...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×