AI. Virtual Reality. Augmented Intelligence. Big Data. Autonomous Software. The Futurists are in a prediction frenzy and throwing around these words not only like everyone understands them but every provider has them.

Very few providers actually have these technologies, but the sad reality is that very few providers aren’t claiming to have them. obviously, this is a problem. A big problem. Because the number of providers claiming to have these technologies and actually have them is only a small percentage — making it hard for anyone to see the big picture.

But we need to — and we need to see it clearly. Very clearly — because, as we have indicated many times, there is a lot more applied indirection out there than artificial intelligence. Similarly, it’s not really virtual reality unless its immersive, and while a lot of gamers might immerse all of their focus into their games, most are not truly immersive. It’s not augmented intelligence unless the application intelligently provides a recommendation, and associated process, that is at least as good as you would come up with and, preferably, as good as a human expert. It’s not even close to being Big Data unless the application is capable of processing and working with more data than can fit in memory on an average server. (Big Data is a moving target — what was big in 2000 is small today.) And it’s not autonomous unless the application is capable of doing processes that would normally take a human to do on its own with the exception of truly exceptional situations (as it should be able to handle most exceptions, especially if the exception was handled before).

The reality is that while software is going to get more automated, and usability is going to continue to improve, we’re not going to see real AI for a while. The “Big Data” that most applications will be capable of handling will continue to be limited to user machine / browser memory. Virtual Reality is a ways off. Augmented Reality will continue to advance, but primarily in gaming.

But depending on what you are looking for, you likely don’t need AI, don’t need “big data”, don’t need autonomous, and definitely don’t need virtual reality. You just need a system that allows you, with some simple RPA, to digitize paper processes, automate common processes, and improve productivity.

And it would be nice if we could get some real 20/20 vision into what vendors actually have and what you really need.

But that might still be a pipe dream.