The News: Oracle announced on June 13 the launch of Oracle Generative AI services. Oracle has forged a partnership with enterprise-focused large language model Cohere to enable Oracle Cloud customers to build generative AI applications leveraging their own data. Oracle will also integrate generative AI capabilities into Oracle business applications, including Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, Oracle NetSuite, and Oracle industry-specific apps.
The company states that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is well positioned to run AI workloads “as it delivers the highest performance and lowest cost GPU cluster technology, with scale of over 16K H100 GPUs per cluster, and very low latency and the highest bandwidth RDMA network in the cloud. This will enable the acceleration of large language models (LLM) training while simultaneously reducing the cost.” Read the full Press Release here.
Oracle Launches Enterprise-Grade Oracle Generative AI Services with Cohere
Analyst Take: Oracle’s Oracle generative AI Services announcement is another positive sign that the generative AI phenomenon is maturing and moving toward enterprise-grade solutions. Here’s why:
Focus LLMs on Smaller, Better Data Sets
Oracle and Cohere specifically noted that Cohere’s foundational models will be pointed at private data sets, instead of public domain data. A major challenge for LLMs trained on massive amounts of public data is a high instance of bias and inaccuracy. The trend toward smaller training sets will instill confidence in results and will be key to enterprise-grade generative AI applications. Cohere’s business model is specifically designed to work with customers who want to leverage their own data sets.
Embedding Generative AI into Oracle Applications
While there will always be a small subset of companies who prefer to build their own technology platforms and applications, most companies will ingest AI through the software services they buy (embedded AI). This is particularly true for significant business applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM), supply chain management (SCM), and customer experience (CX). Oracle, like other innovative SaaS players, is smart to introduce frictionless generative AI that supercharges apps their customers already use.
Oracle’s End-to-End Platform Positioning Brings Enterprise-Grade Assurances to a Nascent Technology
Oracle now talks frequently about the Oracle End-to-End Platform, which offers cloud infrastructure and applications (as well as database management). It is a value proposition which can offer more seamless integrations and spin-ups, better security, efficiencies, and time savings. Baking generative AI integration into this value proposition is assurance that enterprise-grade guardrails will help manage fledgling generative AI applications.
The launch of generative AI services with Cohere should not surprise anyone but has the potential to be a high-value partnership for Oracle and its substantial customer base. With so much focus on enterprise AI, we are continuously hearing about the need for rich proprietary datasets to be introduced along with popular LLMs to deliver on the potential of generative AI. Right now, we are seeing all major vendors including key Oracle competitors like Salesforce, Microsoft, and SAP all launching instantiations of generative tools on proprietary datasets. Oracle needs to be competitive here and can use its end-to-end platform plus its customer base to quickly deploy applications featuring generative AI capabilities.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse: Boosting the Multi-Cloud and Open Source Missions
Oracle Database Analyst Summit: Powering the Multi-Cloud Era and Liberating Developers
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
Mark comes to The Futurum Group from Omdia’s Artificial Intelligence practice, where his focus was on natural language and AI use cases.
Previously, Mark worked as a consultant and analyst providing custom and syndicated qualitative market analysis with an emphasis on mobile technology and identifying trends and opportunities for companies like Syniverse and ABI Research. He has been cited by international media outlets including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, and CNET. Based in Tampa, Florida, Mark is a veteran market research analyst with 25 years of experience interpreting technology business and holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida.
