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What Cheetos tell us about enterprise AI

Welcome to Protocol | Enterprise, your comprehensive roundup of everything you need to know about the week in cloud and enterprise software. This Monday: PepsiCo's AI journey, BlackRock is partnering with Snowflake, and using an engineering mindset to improve D&I efforts.
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Enterprise AI is in a kind of weird limbo. It's not to say AI isn't powerful; it very much is. But the fear of woeful returns on investment has shaped how companies are rolling it out.
Cheetos provide a useful window into enterprise AI adoption and what it might really look like for many companies. No, really, hear me out. Since early 2019, PepsiCo has been working with Microsoft to use AI to try to make the, uh, perfect Cheeto. And Denise Lefebvre, the senior vice president of research and development for global foods at PepsiCo, swears it is more complicated than it sounds.
But a perfect Cheeto is a lot of work for machine learning. So alongside experts from Microsoft, PepsiCo sought input from chemical engineers, food chemists, sensory scientists and the machine operators who actually have to work alongside the technology. (Microsoft calls this feedback loop "machine teaching.")
Slowly, PepsiCo is putting this AI to real use. After testing the system out in a pilot plant in the U.S., the company is putting the technology into actual production in one of its facilities in Spain. And it's already testing out how the system could be used in the production of Doritos.
While solving for the perfect Cheetos seems trivial, projects like this reveal — and help to solve — the operational challenges that are preventing more enterprises from taking their own AI projects into large-scale production. The more companies that try to solve their own Cheeto problem, the sooner enterprise AI inches out of its limbo and into the mainstream.
-- Joe Williams
For corporate IT managers, there are many motivations to move dynamic workloads to the cloud. It provides an irresistible trifecta of flexibility, scalability, and costs savings for those managing varying workloads. Here's how to keep your data safe while it's in the cloud.
Digitizing Wall Street: Investors — well, at least, non-Reddit investors — are among the most avid users of data, deploying advanced analytics to help pinpoint trades by the millisecond. Now, Snowflake is teaming up with marquee institutional investor BlackRock to help customers make even better use of stored information.
Turmoil in Google's AI team: Well, more of it.The tech giant told employees it will change some of its hiring and firing policies in the wake of continued firings in its ethical AI team, but Timnit Gebru was less than impressed by the outcome, reports Anna Kramer. This whole saga has been a huge mess for Google and it seems very eager to move past it, installing long-time engineering head Marian Croak as the new leader for the responsible AI team.
Doubling down on D&I? Holler CEO Travis Montaque has sound advice on corporates who want to do that. Of note, he argues that tech companies should approach the issue in the same way they approach engineering challenges: tapping the agile method.
Lots of people will be eager to hear what Nvidia has to say about the chip shortage during its investor call. Attention will also be on two other earnings calls this week: Salesforce (expect questions about Slack) and VMware, which is still seeking a permanent CEO.
Feb. 23: The Startup Grind conference begins with speakers including Slack Chief Product Officer Tamar Yehoshua.
Feb. 24: Nvidia reports earnings. Startup Grind continues with sessions featuring execs from Google Cloud, Twilio, Snowflake and more.
Feb. 25: Salesforce and VMware report earnings. Startup Grind wraps up.For corporate IT managers, there are many motivations to move dynamic workloads to the cloud. It provides an irresistible trifecta of flexibility, scalability, and costs savings for those managing varying workloads. Here's how to keep your data safe while it's in the cloud.
Thanks for reading — see you Thursday.
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