What is Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS)?

Machine learning refers to the application of computing techniques to big data in a way that allows the computer to perform very high-level reasoning on given and predicted data sets. Product recommendation engines, search engines, artificial intelligence as a whole are all products of the application of machine learning to modern, people problems. A small list of the applications of machine learning includes: Netflix's recommender engine, Google's search engine predictor, Amazon's recommended product engine, etc. Machine learning can help cut costs in a business, as well as increase sales. For these reasons, machine learning has become a popular tool for modern businesses, but it has some drawbacks.

Rise of MLaaS

In order for an organization to implement machine learning in their business, they have traditionally had to hire expensive talent who had the knowledge necessary to perform machine learning on their data set. These individuals, often called Data Scientists nowadays, have traditionally been hard to find because of their particular skill set. After a talented Data Scientist was found, the organization then had to pay for the server capability to process the large amounts of data in their organization. This hardware cost was extensive and often much more than a small business could afford.

Then arrived the introduction of cloud computing.

The cloud world provided companies access to computing resources far beyond what they were capable of internally. Cloud Platform as a Service has become so ubiquitous that companies still solely running off internal infrustructure are falling behind, and losing money and effectiveness from their employees and systems. While these cloud resources have been used historically mainly for data storage and file sharing, a new service has emerged built on top of the cloud platforms that exist today. This new service is MLaaS. Given the ability to process terabytes and terabytes of data, combined with simplicity and ease of use, MLaaS is a very valuable asset to small and large businesses. With its drag-and-drop interface, a user only needs to know what kind of model they would like to use, and then they just plug and play. This is a service that should be adopted by every business, as it holds so much economic value.

Conclusion

The day has come that every employee can and should be empowered by data. Give rank-and-file employees access to data that will benefit them and the tools necessary to process that data, and you will be surprised at the growth your company experiences.