Business is not only moving faster, it’s getting smarter. Artificial Intelligence (AI), once a futuristic concept seen only in the movies, is now a reality. And businesses need it to stay ahead. At AT&T, AI has become our first line of defense.
AI, as it’s used today, is a system of machines and software programmed to learn from the patterns and activities that businesses see on a daily basis. For example, if a user is playing a game against a computer, and uses a consistent strategy for each move, the computer can recognize the pattern, and then implement strategies to prevent the user from winning.
In the same fashion, AT&T uses AI to help protect and secure our network and our data. With the volume of cyber attacks growing every day, we’ve developed a system so that our software and computers can help recognize attacks early on, rather than having security analysts do so manually.
Here’s how it works: our systems “observe” the regular cadence and pattern of data as it crosses our network. For every company and user on our network, we can establish a baseline of what normal traffic patterns look like – when spikes in traffic normally occur, where traffic comes from and goes to, and what normal communications look like. With this baseline view, our systems can identify anomalies to flag for review or for immediate action.
These abnormalities are bounced against our database of known threats to determine risk level and mitigation strategies. What’s more, if a threat we have never seen before is identified, artificial intelligence allows us to automatically add that threat to AT&T Threat Intellect (our learning database) so that similar threats will be identified for customers anywhere in our network moving forward. This helps protect customer devices, tablets, cars, and internet connections on our network.
While having a platform this intelligent seems like a Hollywood creation, this kind of AI is actually founded in human intelligence. It’s our human insights that give rise to the powerful capabilities AI has to offer. We can understand and help predict human behavior, allowing us to develop algorithms and capabilities to protect against abnormalities and possible concerns.
Using human intelligence, we program software with a living memory that is constantly learning based on past findings, decisions and results. This capability means we can create systems that predict future events like what a player’s next move in chess will be or the optimal stoplight timing across a city, based on traffic patterns at any time of day. And natural language processing has progressed to yield smart assistants like Siri and Alexa.
These solutions have become foundational to our society, and enable innovation. Letting our Threat Intellect handle the first layer of defense allows businesses to spend less time looking for needles in haystacks and more time on research, development and strategy so that they can win in their respective industries. With these insights and AI learnings in place, businesses can play offense with smarter services, faster cycle times, and the agility to respond to market opportunities.