How SaaS Technology Transforms Unstructured Data into Strategic Insights

In the digital era, data isn't just a commodity: it's the lifeblood of businesses worldwide. From online interactions to customer reviews and social media posts, every digital footprint adds to this immense pool of information. However, a significant portion of this data isn't neatly organized: 90% of data is unstructured, a mix of text, numbers, and dates from various sources and formats. This data contains valuable insights, but companies need innovative solutions to use all this information effectively.

Recognizing the need for innovative solutions, businesses turn to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology, which stands at the forefront of the data revolution. SaaS operates on a cloud-based model, where third-party providers host applications accessible to users over the internet. What sets SaaS apart is its elimination of the need for users to install, maintain, or upgrade applications individually. Instead, users can seamlessly access the software through a web browser, paying a subscription fee either monthly or annually. This approach not only simplifies data management but also empowers businesses to effectively harness the untapped potential of unstructured data, transforming it into valuable insights for strategic decision-making.

An example of SaaS model application is Elastic, a cloud-based platform designed to handle large volumes of unstructured data accessible to users over the internet. What sets Elastic apart is indeed its remarkable adaptability as users don't need to install any software on their device. Elastic provides its services on a subscription basis, allowing businesses to pay for the services they use without the hassle of upfront costs.

Concur is another company that operates on a SaaS model, offering cloud-based software solutions to businesses for managing their travel expenses and invoices. By leveraging SaaS technology, Concur’s users can access travel, expense, and invoice management tools from anywhere paying a subscription fee based on their usage. Also, Concur's SaaS platform can connect with other business software, making it easy to share data between different systems. By doing so, Concur transforms seemingly disparate pieces of information into meaningful, actionable insights that empower businesses to make well-informed decisions related to their travel expenditures, employee preferences, and overall travel management strategies.

Car-sharing leader Uber has successfully integrated SaaS technology into its operations, revolutionizing the way it serves its customers. Through advanced data analysis, Uber integrates and processes unstructured data coming from different data sources, including traffic patterns and GPS information, to make real-time decisions on pricing and optimizes driver routes. Moreover, UberEATS, an extension of Uber that specializes in food delivery, employs sophisticated data analysis software: By understanding customer preferences and behaviors, UberEATS can predict the arrival time of a customer's UberEATS order, ensuring a seamless customer experience.

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market is experiencing unprecedented growth, reaching $148.75 billion in 2021 and projected to soar to $702.19 billion by 2030, as reported by Gartner. In this era of data-driven decision-making, the importance of SaaS technology in harnessing unstructured data cannot be overstated. Companies are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role SaaS plays in converting raw data into actionable insights and enhancing their growth prospects.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

Unlocking Creativity: How AI is Transforming Content Creation

Historically, creativity has been seen as an innately human trait, but the rise of generative AI has redefined this assumption. Creative AI is at the forefront of a transformative wave in content creation, leveraging Artificial Intelligence to produce original and diverse content formats, including impressive visuals and realistic speech and music.

For example, AI imaging pioneers like DALL-E2 and Imagen have demonstrated the ability to generate highly realistic images from simple text descriptions, promising faster, cost-effective, and highly personalized content creation at an unprecedented scale. As an example, when prompted with "a bowl of soup that serves as a gateway to another world in digital art," the AI produces imaginative images that blend creativity and realism, providing a surreal experience (view images below). This exciting development demonstrates how AI is reshaping content creation, giving us a peek into a future where making content is not only quicker and cheaper, but also more tailored to individual preferences. This technology has the potential to completely revolutionize industries that rely on visual content, such as advertising and art, by opening a range of new exciting opportunities for creators and their audience.

Various images generated by DALL-E 2 given the above prompt, Source OpenAI

Another example of Creative AI application was developed by Tencent Music Entertainment, the leading online music entertainment platform in China. The company created mor 1.000 tracks that contain vocals generated by AI technology designed to emulate human voice. This technology called Lingyin Engine, can quickly replicate singers’ voices to produce original songs of any style and language: One of these tracks, titled “Today”, has already surpassed 100million streams. HYBE, a Korean entertainment company and record label behind Korean pop sensation BTS, has acquired Supertone, an AI sound and music generator. This convergence of music and AI not only promises to reshape the music industry but also opens a world of possibilities for artists, providing them with a new era of sonic creativity and experimentation.

Also, creative AI stands out for its remarkable potential to improve productivity, accomplishing in a few years what previously took decades for major technological advancements. Electricity took nearly four decades to have a real impact on productivity since it required adaptation to physical infrastructure. Computers took roughly two decades to make a significant impact with human adoption representing the main barrier to its development. In contrast, creative AI has taken less than three years to deliver major performance improvements, largely due to the active involvement of tech giants who have provided workers with user friendly AI powered tools and applications.

In conclusion, AI is transforming content creation at an astonishing pace. It's not here to replace human creativity but to enhance it. Examples like DALL-E2, Imagen, Tencent Music, and HYBE show how AI can generate stunning visuals and music quickly and affordably. This has the potential to revolutionize industries like advertising and music. According to Fortune Business Insight, the AI market size was 428$ billion in 2022 and is projected to grow from 515.31$ billion in 2023 to 2 trillion by 2030, at a CAGR of 21.6%. This growth reflects the increasing importance of AI, including the creative AI sector, in shaping various industries. As AI technologies advance, they are expected to play a pivotal role in this expansion, offering new opportunities for innovation and productivity.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

The Next Frontier of Gaming: the Creator Economy

Play-To-Earn model currently attracts a lot of attention. Some Metaverse platforms allow users to not only interact with other players, but also to be rewarded with digital tokens convertible in real money.

Meta is building a creator economy on Horizon Worlds, a free VR platform, online video games developed by Meta for Oculus. On Horizon creators make money thanks to their own skills: Players use the platform’s tools to build custom VR spaces and play games together with coworkers and other players. Creators are basically VR world designers that create digital assets thanks to their technical skills and own the intellectual property rights to the content they create (NFTs). Today the gaming platform is only accessible via VR headsets, but because users monetize based on how much other players engage with the game content, Meta is planning to allow users to also access the platform via web in order to attract more gamers.

Another popular platform is Axie Infinity, a Metaverse game experience created on the Ethereum blockchain where users can purchase NFTs of their favorite monster and pit them against each other in battles. With the “play-to-earn” approach, creators are rewarded with crypto tokens - called Smooth Love Potion (SLP) – each time they sell their items. Moreover, they can also loan their NFTs to other players to use and earn with, and profits are divided between the parties. As of February, Axie Infinity had more than 1.8 million DAU and NFT sales volume of $4 billion. There’s no way to play the game without buying the three Axie NFTs needed to create your first team: If you win, you’re rewarded with SLP and you can convert your token into Ethereum, and then into dollars. That’s how users make money playing the game.

Compared with traditional gaming experiences, in Metaverse users are immersed in an environment where they can create, interact, explore, and participate in a wide variety of experiences.

In the Metaverse, most of the content users spend time with, is created by other users. Content creators are incentivized and rewarded based on how much time other users spend engaging with the platform, therefore, to increase profits it is crucial to continuously improve the user experience first, developing the underlying technology, then integrating new tokens in the platform.

It does not come as a surprise that gaming could become the entry portal for the Metaverse, because gaming is a fun and globally adopted activity, and is also extremely advanced technologically. The market opportunity for monetization through the gaming industry is massive, for both platforms and players: Today out of about 8 billion world population, 5 billion people are internet users, 4.6 billion are social media users, and 3 billion are video gamers ripe for potential conversion into Metaverse users.

In summary, gaming is still at the early stage of development in the Metaverse, but the rapid growth of its user base and the increased attention from big companies represents a huge opportunity to invest in the market. Moving from an independent virtual world to an integrated “digital twin of the real world” with better technology and experiences, will bring a wider audience of users and more per-users spending.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.