Another day, another CEO survey. This one, from KPMG, finds that CEOs don't trust their analytics, the way their team is using or implementing them, or even the data used to make decisions in the first place. In fact, only 31 percent of respondents see their organizations as leaders in the use of data and analytics.

In the last few months, I have had several people contact me about their enthusiasm for venturing into the world of data science and using Machine Learning (ML) techniques to probe statistical regularities and build impeccable data-driven products. However, I’ve observed that some actually lack the necessary mathematical intuition and framework to get useful results.

Recently, IBM and Cisco said they are working together to bring business analytics to the edge of the network. The collaboration is meant to offer companies operating in bandwidth-constrained environments more options for gaining insight into connected equipment.

Google is diving deeper into artificial intelligence, with the company opening a dedicated machine learning research center in its Zurich office, the search company announced on Thursday, June 16. The Google Research Europe center will focus on three areas: Machine intelligence, natural language processing, and understanding and machine perception.

Business users need to become self-reliant data explorers and IT departments need to empower them by providing the right tools and environment for fast, easy and wide-ranging data access, according to experts. The old model for analytics offered one way to deploy analytics: IT had to build a centralized semantic layer prior to allowing business users adopt BI. IT controlled analytics, they would build reports and dashboards and flood it out to the masses.

 It's not to say these things can't deliver value to businesses. But without a clear use case in mind, businesses would be better off focusing on more traditional applications, with proven value propositions. A total of 88% of respondents said they are currently successful with BI and analytics, leaving just 12% who consider themselves unsuccessful.

During the company's recent Q1 2016 earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the importance of AI for Facebook. "Artificial intelligence is a long-term effort for us, but we're already using it in lots of ways," he said.

“Think about just how interconnected the world is now,” said Matt Gould, the co-founder of Arria NLG, a prominent enterprise in the development and deployment of Natural Language Generation (NLG) technologies worldwide. “Think about it from just a personal context. How much data are you generating personally every day?