Technology firm Oracle is more aggressive now than before in pushing cloud adoption across all industries and platforms. In his keynote speech at the Oracle OpenWorld currently ongoing in San Franciso, California, CEO Mark Hurd shared his predictions on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain.

“Cloud is irrefutable; it’s foundational,” Hurd said. “This is no longer a debate. The only thing we’re debating is the speed of getting this done.”

Oracle OpenWorld 2018’s attracted more than 60,000 customers and partners from 175 countries and 19 million virtual attendees. The cloud technology conference is expected to contribute “$195 million in positive economic impact to the City of San Francisco in 2018.”

Emerging tech

Oracle has been laying the groundwork for emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, and digital assistants by embedding innovative technologies into its available cloud applications. The firm wants customers to utilize its “Oracle Cloud Infrastructure serves as the foundational enabler for Oracle’s AI and Autonomous capabilities.”

“The real opportunity with emerging technologies is enabling our customers to embrace innovation on a scale we’ve never seen before,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Platform. “Oracle’s technologies provide the building blocks for customers to pioneer new innovations, create new opportunities, and drive amazing breakthroughs.”

Oracle has also put advanced AI and machine learning into its cloud services including Oracle CX applications, which now have built-in AI tools.

This is aligned with Hurd’s prediction that by 2025, “100 percent of cloud applications will include AI, 85 percent of all customer interactions will be automated, and 60 percent of all IT jobs have not been invented yet, but will be in that timeframe.”

Automation

He was quick to note that it doesn’t mean automation will replace jobs but instead, it will help create new jobs. “New careers fueled by the use of AI and other emerging technologies will include supervisors for robots, smart city technology designers, AI-assisted healthcare technicians, and data professionals.”

He also pointed out that “cloud and integrated technologies such as AI lower cost, drive more innovation, and improve productivity.”

Hurd also took note of another fast-emerging technology, the blockchain, in which he Oracle believes “will be a feature of virtually all applications where it can be part of enabling the exchange of secure information.”

Oracle is expanding its blockchain service offering to include new business applications built on its own blockchain development platform to support new use cases, such as track and trace for supply chain and logistics.

“The real opportunity with emerging technologies is enabling our customers to embrace innovation on a scale we’ve never seen before,” said Amit Zavery, executive vice president, Oracle Cloud Platform. “Oracle’s technologies provide the building blocks for customers to pioneer new innovations, create new opportunities, and drive amazing breakthroughs.”

Another emerging technology Oracle is investing heavily in is digital assistants which will allow employees to be more productive as chatbots can be personalized. “With this technology, employees can leverage one comprehensive digital assistant that can be trained to support domain skills from multiple applications such as HR, ERP, CRM, and CX. Leveraging AI, Oracle Digital Assistant understands context, derives intent, and identifies and learns user behaviors and patterns to automate routine tasks proactively, such as expense approvals and meeting reschedules, on behalf of the user,” the company explained in a release.

The company is using machine learning and intelligent automation in its new cloud security offerings that include “a Web Application Firewall to help protect against attacks on web traffic; Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection to stop outside parties from disrupting running applications; an integrated Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) which monitors and enforces secure configurations; and a Key Management Service (KMS) that allows customers to control the encryption of their data.”

Hurd’s optimism on cloud acceleration can be summed up in his statement that “last year alone, 15 percent of the US corporate-owned datacenters shut down.”

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