In a groundbreaking year for technology, InfoWorld’s 2023 Technology of the Year Awards spotlight the remarkable influence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) across the IT landscape. With 52 finalists and 20 winners, these awards recognize cutting-edge products across various categories, from AI and machine learning to cloud computing and data management. Here, we delve into some of the standout winners and finalists that have harnessed GenAI to redefine their respective fields.*
AI and machine learning: development
SAS Viya, a cloud-native analytics and AI platform, emerged victorious in the AI and Machine Learning Development category. This platform not only fulfills the promise of AI but also introduces unprecedented speed and productivity. It allows cost-effective scalability, boosts productivity, and fosters innovation, all while ensuring trust and transparency. SAS Viya brings teams and technology together, enabling seamless collaboration and delivering AI and analytics lifecycle solutions that transform crucial questions into trusted decisions.
The judges noted that SAS Viya’s benchmark data demonstrated an impressive 87% reduction in computing resources when running similar models compared to competitors. Furthermore, it outshone the competition in terms of efficiency, cost reduction, model scalability, and time-to-insights when training models.
Glean revolutionizes enterprise search
In the AI and Machine Learning Applications category, Glean took home the coveted award. With workplace information scattered across various tools and platforms, finding relevant information can be a challenging and time-consuming task. Glean, an AI-powered enterprise search platform, aims to streamline this process. It searches across all company apps, comprehending context, language, behavior, and relationships to deliver personalized answers and connect users with the right people. Glean’s innovative approach ensures that you and your team never miss critical information.
The judges appreciated Glean’s novel application of large language models (LLMs) in the enterprise search space, effectively using contextual hints from data sources to enhance search results.
BI and analytics
AnswerRocket Max democratizes data analytics
AnswerRocket Max clinched the award in the BI and Analytics category. This augmented analytics platform is built on the principle that data and analytics should be accessible to all. Leveraging AI and ML technology, AnswerRocket empowers users worldwide to explore, analyze, and derive insights from enterprise data confidently. AnswerRocket’s RocketSkills offers purpose-built advanced analytics modules, automating analysis for common use cases and democratizing data analytics within organizations. It eliminates information barriers and makes data analysis easily understandable.
The judges applauded AnswerRocket Max for offering practical and highly capable GenAI-driven solutions that enable business users to gain analytical insights rapidly and easily.
Cloud compliance and governance
Clumio Protect emerged as the winner in the Cloud Compliance and Governance category. In an era where data is invaluable, Clumio ensures that critical data remains safe, compliant, and access-controlled, regardless of its source. Whether it’s databases, data lakes, or business systems, Clumio safeguards resident data against cyber threats, operational disruptions, and outages. The judges highlighted Clumio’s cloud-native backup with fast restore capabilities and highly granular restore operations that facilitate flexible business continuity.
Cloud cost management
In the Cloud Cost Management category, Kubecost took the top spot. Kubecost provides real-time cost visibility and insights for developer and finops teams using Kubernetes. It monitors, manages, and optimizes Kubernetes-related cloud costs, helping organizations reduce their cloud expenses by up to 70% while maintaining application performance. Kubecost’s design, tailored for Kubernetes and the cloud-native ecosystem, integrates seamlessly with technologies from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.
According to the judges, Kubecost has established itself as the industry standard for measuring the cost of Kubernetes infrastructure, offering no clear alternative.
Cloud Security
Sysdig Secure was declared the winner in the Cloud Security category. Sysdig is a revolutionary cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) designed to provide comprehensive security for cloud-native applications, containers, and orchestration platforms. It leverages runtime insights to inform security measures during the development phase, offering a unified platform with multiple security functionalities. Sysdig enables enhanced security postures, unrivaled vulnerability prioritization, and real-time visibility to proactively detect and respond to security threats.
The judges found Sysdig Secure’s approach of using runtime data for early security decision-making in the development lifecycle particularly interesting and innovative.
Containers
Gloo Platform secured the win in the Containers category. It stands as the industry’s leading application networking platform, combining service mesh, API gateway, and multicloud networking into a unified solution for microservices. Gloo Platform addresses the complexity reduction challenge through the integration of open-source technologies into a modular platform that handles API management, zero-trust security, microservices scaling, multicloud networking, and compliance.
The judges praised Gloo Platform’s excellent API and microservices management, highlighting its wide range of features that cater to the diverse needs of modern development organizations.
Data management: Governance
In the Data Management: Governance category, Teleskope emerged as the winner. Teleskope is a modern data protection platform that automates data security, privacy, and compliance at scale, assisting organizations in complying with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Its advanced classification engine, powered by a large language model and rules engine, swiftly monitors cloud and SaaS data stores, providing a comprehensive inventory of assets and their associated security and compliance risks.
The judges commended Teleskope’s innovative use of LLM technology to help companies better cope with compliance mandates.
Data management: Integration
The winner in the Data Management: Integration category is SnapLogic Intelligent Integration Platform. SnapLogic’s vision is to simplify integration by significantly improving the ease and speed of integration via SnapGPT, an AI-driven integration solution. SnapGPT accelerates business transformation by enabling users to streamline data pipeline and integration workflow development using a natural language interface. It offers the ability to generate fully functional integrations, synthetic test data, complex SQL queries, and more.
The judges praised SnapLogic’s innovative use of generative AI to facilitate complex system integration, simplifying a traditionally challenging task.
Data management: Pipelines
In the Data Management: Pipelines category, the Acceldata Data Observability Platform took the top honors. This enterprise data observability platform offers comprehensive visibility into various data sources, making it easier for data teams to identify and prevent issues, ensuring the reliability of data stacks. Supporting a wide range of data sources, it provides insights into compute and infrastructure, reliability, pipelines, and user behavior.
The judges noted that Acceldata’s support for a broad variety of data platforms and its powerful analysis capabilities in multi-stage pipelines set it apart in the data observability space.
