Oracle to Employ Advanced Algorithms Across Entire App Portfolio

At the Oracle OpenWorld 2017 conference this week, Oracle unveiled a raft of applications that all employ machine learning algorithms to automate processes spanning from how goods and services are procured to how individuals are recruited to work for the company.

Jack Berkowitz, vice president of products and data Science for Oracle Adaptive Intelligence, says the Oracle Adaptive Intelligent Apps portfolio makes use of machine learning algorithms embedded at every layer of the IT stack to automate multiple processes. The algorithms not only affect processes within an application, but can also be applied across them, says Berkowitz.

“We refer to that as connected intelligence,” says Berkowitz.

Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud, Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud, Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud, and the Oracle Customer Experience are all being infused with advanced algorithms. In effect, providers of enterprise applications are now engaged in an algorithms arms race.

Berkowitz says the ability to combine machine and deep learning algorithms at the application, database, middleware and infrastructure level and connect them across multiple use cases will allow Oracle to significantly differentiate itself from rivals. In addition, Berkowitz says the desire to take advantage of those algorithms will accelerate adoption of cloud applications. Trying to infuse machine and deep learning algorithms into a single on-premises application is simply going to be too complex an endeavor for the average IT organization, says Berkowitz.

It’s hard to say with certainty whether the infusion of advanced algorithms will drive a mass wave of application upgrades. But at this point, it’s hard to imagine an organization running legacy applications being able to effectively compete against an organization employing applications that enable them to respond faster and better to rapidly changing events and circumstances.