Predictive Analytics

A few years back, any discussion on artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) used to be a niche topic, relegated to the end chapters of most data platform books. The primary reason for this lack of urgency was due to the fact that AI/ML projects didn’t give a positive return on investment (ROI) for most businesses, due to the high total cost of ownership (TCO), for making AI/ML-based predictions a reality. However, with the onset of cloud technologies and the benefits it brings to businesses, AI/ML has become one of the primary topics of discussion and implementation for almost all businesses. We are now at a stage where any organization not doing any kind of predictive analytics is at risk of losing out to its competitors, who are constantly striving to look into the future and make business decisions based on it.

The topic of AI/ML is dense, and often, you will see a series of books catering to specific areas of it. Since we only have a chapter...