In a world where AI thrives on data, and your business needs to thrive on AI, integration is not an option. It is the tool you need to bridge between creating data and delivering value from that data. Consider a retailer using AI to drive custom recommendations based on purchases. But only half of customer order data is flowing to their back-end in a timely manner, as all their sales from kiosks and regional stores are uploaded days or even weeks later, long after online orders are captured and processed. The promise of AI at this business fizzles out as it does not meet its potential, missing access to too many critical data points to provide real insights.

Why does AI thrive on data? In truth AI output is made from data the data it is fed. It analyses and extrapolates based entirely on the data it is trained against and the tasks and input it is given. Starve it of data, and you starve the AI of any value.

And what is integration? It is a set of tools and processes to move data from where it is created (users, applications, systems, sensors) to where it is consumed (in the case of AI the data feeds models to generate insights). Without integration, data stays in local siloes. AI goes on a diet, and the insights fall short of value, with missed business opportunities as a result.

More than 40% of businesses say that insufficient data will be available for AI models, and more than 80% of IT leaders, according to an IDC study, say data siloes are a barrier to digital transformation. Both these suggest that an integration solution which increases access to data, will be essential in allowing businesses to exploit the potential of AI. If data is the life blood of business, then integration provides the blood vessels allowing the data to flow through the business. And if AI is the brain of the business, then the blood flow is essential, allowing business to reach their full potential and using AI to its full potential.

Let’s consider what data we are talking about. Data is created everywhere, and all the time. Your customer makes a query. Your supplier invoices you. Your logistics company arrives to pick up goods for delivery. You receive a payment. Your smoke detector is triggered in your factory. Data can be overwhelming. But all of it is essential, and all of it valuable. This is where AI can ride to the rescue. It can act as your digital assistant, looking out for what’s important, or maybe what’s unusual. With so many sources of data, and so much being created, you need to be able to feed in all the sources of data to the right AI agents and let them alert you only to what you need to know, or what might not be handled automatically.

This is where IBM Cloud Pak for Integration is the right tool for the job. Integration is used already today within your business to provide access to data. Maybe through APIs using API Management and Application Integration. Or maybe with Kafka solutions feeding subscribers with the events they are listening for. AI engines can be fed with these different sources of data and use their insight to allow businesses to take action when needed. But, if the business integration is slow to create, deploy, operate or update, then AI will always be behind the curve, not getting access to the right data at the right time. And likely the costs of hooking up the AI engine to each data source would be complex and costly, unless integration has made it simple and repeatable.

This need for speed, simplicity and repeatability makes IBM Cloud Pak for Integration an ideal choice for integration to power AI. Instead of deploying in VMs or being only available in the cloud, your integrations are in robust, scalable and secure containers deployed in Red Hat OpenShift, running anywhere your business runs. This ensures all your data, from every application, and every system can be integrated and fed into your AI agents to gain the maximum insight with the minimum effort.

How are you going to get started? Look at your existing applications which already capture so much of your data. Cloud Pak for Integration provides no-code integrations using IBM App Connect, simplifying access to any data in any application. This data can then be made available through an API, published using IBM API Connect. Maybe your business wants to stream events happening in real-time into a suitable Agent, and with IBM Event Streams also included in Cloud Pak for Integration it is simple and consistent. Everything is right there, in the box, designed to work together seamlessly.

The power of Cloud Pak for Integration is that all of these capabilities are part of the same seamlessly connected platform, deployable in containers. All integrations run securely without interfering with each other. And new integrations and updates can be pushed automatically using DevOps and CI/CD pipelines, seamlessly without impacting any other deployments, driving huge efficiencies in operations. These benefits mean that the cost and complexity of enabling AI with data through an integration platform becomes highly compelling, driving business benefits without negative impacts. What’s stopping you? With tools like the Integration Assemblies in Cloud Pak for Integration you can deploy new integrations in minutes, which means you could connect an AI agent to a new source of data in minutes.

Your newly hyperconnected enterprise is also more resilient. Cloud Pak for integration also includes IBM MQ and MQ Advanced, with Native HA and Cross-Region Replication providing HA and DR options. And MQ Streaming Queues can ensure that critical MQ messages can be simply fed into data streams to deliver further AI insights.

AI is not Magic – it’s data. Cloud Pak for Integration ensures your business can not only adopt AI but can quickly thrive with AI. Every bit of data created can become a new opportunity, powered by AI, enabled by CP4I.

Learn more about IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, as well as IBM MQ and IBM App Connect in our upcoming webinar on Tuesday September 23rd. Register here.

And don't forget to register for and attend IBM TechXchange in Orlando in October - see our customers and technical leaders talk about products like Cloud Pak for Integration in person. https://www.ibm.com/community/ibm-techxchange-conference/