PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Web 2.0 is making this possible... Intelligent software Agents to monitor, extract, and mashup web and enterprise content as if it were a human being doing it. Expand on this idea, how does this work?
We have these intelligent software Agents that are able to go out to the web understand all different kinds of information, and do pretty much what humans would do in terms of monitoring, accessing, formatting, delivering, and creating real value out of this information. Once the agents have gone out and done this, new applications can be created, new data sources are available. If you think about the amount of information available on the web, which is hundreds of billions of pages, plus the information that’s inside the enterprise – typically 5 to 10 thousand sources – this opens up wholly new possibilities for information.
From the users point of view, tell me about the mechanics of creating these intelligent software Agents, and unleashing them to do your bidding.
The idea with the Agents and their -- based upon a proprietary technology -- that we received a powerful patent in… Essentially the agents can be created easily with a point-and-click interface. They can be reused, they can be shared, and essentially one can amass a small army of these agents to help with any number of business tasks.
What’s the consequence of using this kind of technology on overall situational awareness and actionable intelligence?
Once one has these agents in place, and again, this is something wholly new, once you have your own selection, your own group of agents in place, you can apply this to almost every function in an organization, especially in areas of research, business intelligence, information collection, etc. And what it gives the user is a very unique and personalized view of their world. Real-time and unique in both quantitative and contextual.
Let’s drill down on this. What kind of uses are being made of this approach already?
It’s being used very successfully for research of all kinds like financial research, pharmaceuticals, etc. It’s very interesting, in financial research, agents essentially were able to find the primary data that in cases can move markets. It’s being used in investment banking, business intelligence, competitive intelligence, homeland security, integration. The kind of vision we have for the future, the way we see the future unfolding, is that the great organizations will have not only the best and brightest employees but really the best and smartest information agents.
It sounds like somebody is finally figuring out a way to make use of all this information!