How Progress is Transforming Enterprise IT

Enterprise IT is being transformed by Artificial Intelligence, from application development to data management.

In this interview with Dataquest, John Ainsworth, EVP & GM, Application and Data Platform at Progress, discusses integration of AI into Progress' product portfolio, challenges faced by enterprises in AI adoption, as well as the company's commitment to innovation through its R&D centers in India. He also touches on the industries that are leading in AI adoption, and the importance for businesses to embrace AI as a competitive imperative, lest they risk falling behind.

AI is transforming infrastructure software. How is Progress leveraging AI to enhance application and data platforms?

At Progress, we’re working to deeply integrate AI into our overall product portfolio to help our customers innovate and drive efficiency and effectiveness in their operations.  This applies to our infrastructure management solutions, as well as our digital experience and application and data management portfolio of solutions.

Our responsible AI-powered solutions help automate complex tasks, enhance data analytics and significantly improve decision-making processes while maintaining the level of data security and ensuring the trustworthiness of responses that enterprise customers demand.

Even before talking about how AI can help boost productivity and innovation, it’s important to understand that AI outcomes are only as good as the data feeding them. The adage of “garbage in, garbage out” applies even more to AI, where the volumes of data, the variety of data sources is ever increasing and the need to understand and minimize bias and hallucinations is even more important. Organizations need a robust data strategy to harness the full potential of their data for innovation and growth.

What are the key challenges enterprises face when integrating AI into their IT infrastructure, and how does Progress help address them?

While there are many problems associated with the mechanics of integration including cost management, the ability to integrate across different data sources – all of which the Progress solutions can assist with, I would say that the most fundamental challenge is one of trust.

Trust in the output is based in part on the knowledge that the most appropriate and relevant input data has been used, but also that there is a way to validate the answers. This is why the Progress solutions enable organizations to leverage the experience and expertise of their subject matter experts to provide knowledge models that guide the use of AI and significantly improve the outcomes.

Public AI models also do not have access to information that is proprietary and confidential to the enterprise. It is this proprietary information that allows a company to differentiate itself. Think of the years of investment in gathering and maintaining information about customers, products, proprietary research and much more. This is information that a company does not want to have leak into a public model but must be made available in a governed and secure way so that the AI can leverage both public and private information for a more accurate and relevant response.  

Techniques such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) are one way that private data can be leveraged more effectively.

Are there any India-specific innovations or partnerships that Progress is working on?

Progress’ R&D centers in Hyderabad, Bengaluru and New Delhi are strategic innovation hubs, playing a key role in the company’s global success. Progress already has teams developing industry-leading technologies for application development, database management and data connectivity, as well as DevOps and DevSecOps products, leveraged by thousands of enterprises worldwide.

I was just in Hyderabad a week ago to meet the local developer community and was impressed with the energy and innovation I saw. This also applied to our solid community of partners and customers who rely on our technology to run their businesses. I am looking forward to seeing this grow and unlock even more opportunities for us.

What industries in India do you see as early adopters of your AI-powered solutions?

While the use of AI is gaining traction in many industries, we are seeing rapid adoption and success in those organizations with access to large volumes of public and private data. These include banking and financial services, insurance and risk management including fraud detection as well as biotech, pharma and life sciences. Additionally, customer-service and customer engagement use cases are accelerating.

How do you see AI shaping the future of application development and enterprise IT over the next five years?

We are at the start of an application development revolution. First, productivity will significantly increase, as application developers leverage AI coding assistants to speed up their productivity significantly. Next will be a step change where developers and the business will come closer together, driving innovation at pace and scale. Interestingly, this is where Progress began over 40 years ago with the ability for business owners to create applications using the Advanced Business Language (ABL) in the original Progress platform, now called Progress OpenEdge.

Now we are working on ways to leverage AI with the OpenEdge platform and data. Organizations will either understand how to embrace and leverage AI for competitive advantage, or they will be disrupted by those who do.