Developments in the world of technology continue at a rapid pace – in some cases delivering increased productivity and flexibility to users, but in others opening doors to previously unconsidered issues. One of these is the new data frontier – AI, chatbot and chat application data.
What data does this encompass?
Data streams from non-traditional sources are starting to tick up in what percentage of a company’s generated data load they make up. Until now, it has typically been ignored; the data there was not treated the same way as something from a traditional data source -emails, work files and so on.
The major current source for this is AI systems – chatbots, LLMs, or AI-driven tools. Even AI-skeptic companies are seeing more grudging AI use, and enthusiastic adopters are pushing boundaries of what can be passed off to automatized tools.
Before AI tools and chatbots began making inroads, the same process occurred with chat systems like Teams, Skype for Business, Slack, or even WhatsApp. These communication streams and systems were initially (and in some case are still) held separate from the more typical “professional” systems.
Why do we care?
As time goes on, this has begun to change. Enterprises that widely utilize AI are acutely aware that AI systems are critical business assets, and that the outputs of this AI hold some value.
Likewise with chat systems – increasingly, it’s becoming apparent that business communications occurring over Teams and Slack are in and of themselves business data that should be being captured, retained and organized.
Finally, as these understandings slowly percolate through the business world, it is inevitable that eventually the regulatory bodies overseeing that world will catch up. Regulations do not typically target these data sources yet (with regards to things like Right To Be Forgotten or eDiscovery), but it is only a matter of time.
What’s Next?
The quandary is that current archives and backups are not always structured in a way that makes capturing AI outputs easy, as Forbes noted in their article linked above. This means that some of this data may not be easily retained, with implications for recovery and longevity (to say nothing of future regulation).
While archives, backups and data management solutions can be expected to catch up relatively quickly, the other area of concern is how the data will be used going forward. AI chatbots in particular have a capacity for pulling information and insights on users beyond the scope of most alternatives, opening the door to a continued conversation on privacy and ethics in storing, cataloguing and using this data for business purposes.
The future is now, and organizations worldwide need to quickly begin adjusting to it.
Your Data In Your Hands – With TECH-ARROW
