IRVINE, Calif., March 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SWARM Engineering is proud to announce AVA, the first AgriFood Virtual Advisor, an AI-powered digital assistant based on OpenAI, Microsoft Azure and SWARM technology, designed to help businesses in agri-food solve operational challenges and save millions of dollars.

You’ve defined the problem, your data is clean and ready, matching it to an appropriate solution is easy, right? You may have the traditional ‘build or buy’ decision to make, but either approach should theoretically be straightforward. Yet statistics show many projects falter at this stage – in 2022 the Standish Group reported that only 4% of new software application projects are successful (with 49% failing outright), and only 30% of software package deployment projects meet with success. All of which suggests there is flaw in the process, which leads to the question of whether there might be a better way to deliver solutions, with a much higher success rate.

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You have a clear definition of your problem, you just need to get the data, and then you can start building a solution. Great, your IT department says, we think we can get that for you in about six months. Arghhhh!

There is an alternative, though, the business department already has most of that data, in exports from transactional applications plus home-grown spreadsheets they manage themselves – perhaps you could use that?

When Einstein famously said, “If I had 60 minutes to save the world, I’d spend the first 55 minutes defining the problem, and the next five minutes solving it”, he was sharing hard-won experience. Once you’ve got a clear problem definition, the solution frequently falls into place. But that’s not the whole picture. For one thing, problems aren’t static, and then there are other issues to contend with – such as cleaning and preparing data, or picking the right solution from a panoply of choices.

Last year we posted about the five superpowers SWARM software can deliver to supply chain companies, but there is a sixth power that seems to be in remarkably short supply right now, which is stronger than the others. What is this remarkable power? Luck. 

It feels like EVERYBODY is talking about OpenAI and ChatGPT, even your great aunt will want to discuss it with you at the next family BBQ. Having spent some time using the tool, I would agree that it’s very impressive and completely understand why Microsoft are planning on investing $10 billion in the company.

This has been an exciting year for SWARM, here are some highlights:

Get the SWARM Challenge Modeler - Today!
It's been a delight to finally announce general availability of the SWARM Challenge Modeler, and access to the personal edition is free to all. This tool lets business users easily define and publish their biggest issues, in a standard and repeatable way. It also links directly to our SWARM Solution Engine, for rapid delivery of SaaS solutions. We would encourage you to give it a try here!

New technology trends and capabilities will open up entirely new categories of solutions for SWARM. One software trend that Anthony finds most exciting is Nocode. This has the potential to place powerful algorithms for AI, machine learning (ML), and operational research in the hands of regular people without requiring them to have a math degree or years of software development experience.

Aaron Magenheim co-founder of Grower’s Insight and Anthony Howcroft CEO at SWARM Engineering both talk about the work they do to help organizations optimize, modernize, and digitize business processes.

Today’s food supply chain is one of the most crucial and complex industries, with many moving parts, often at risk of disruption. Many companies operate in this challenging domain and are perpetually searching for an advantage via comprehensive, scalable, and cost-effective solutions that enhance their business and propel their growth. The complexity of the food supply chain calls for a sophisticated approach, increasingly with AI and machine learning, to address the issues. Yet the skills and resources to deliver on these technologies are scarce.

If you're curious about what it would be like to be a Quant, the invention of the q-learning algorithm, or if classifying million year old mice and vole teeth is a suitable problem for AI to solve then this podcast is for you. Our guest is Chris Watkins, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Royal Holloway, University of London but more famously known as the inventor of the Q-table algorithm that sparked the resurgence in reinforcement learning. Listen along as he and Anthony Howcroft (SWARM's CEO) talk about using reinforcement learning to solve challenges in the agri-food supply chain.

The key to fostering an optimized agri-food supply chain lies in identifying, defining, and mitigating core operational challenges. The end to-end optimization of the supply chain provides all stakeholders, be it food and beverage manufacturers, producers, or shipping organizations, with an opportunity to not just reduce costs but also unlock greater efficiencies and manage potential risks. Nobody understands this better than SWARM Engineering—a Software-as-a-Service platform that leverages next-gen cognitive AI to optimize the agri-food supply chain.

SWARM Engineering was founded on the concept of what if we could solve problems instead of simply highlighting them? Anthony Howcroft, CEO of SWARM had worked in big data at Microsoft, and seen many companies getting actionable insights into their business but not fully realizing the potential to make dramatic cost savings or boost revenues. “It felt like there was another level of software maturity that companies were missing,” he told us.

SWARM Engineering was founded in Southern California, to see how a multi-agent system could take advantage of the latest AI and IoT developments to solve problems that were common in business, but hard to solve with traditional IT. Challenges like product formulation or blending can involve trillions of potential combinations, as can many common supply-chain processes like supply and demand planning, or logistics.

IRVINE, Calif., April 5, 2022--SWARM Engineering, the software-as-a-service platform that focuses on solving complex challenges in the agri-food supply chain, announced today the launch of the SWARM Challenge Modeler, a unique approach to defining and solving business challenges.

SWARM Challenge Modeler enables people to clearly define a business challenge in the agri-food supply chain and is designed to be simple enough for any businessperson to use. A library of easy-to-use templates, created by industry experts, helps business users rapidly define and understand their challenge, which can then be matched directly to an algorithmic solution in the existing SWARM solution engine.

Good news: the AgriTech conferences last week in San Francisco were a big hit, and the exhibition hall was filled with high quality attendees from a mix of agricultural firms, venture capitalists, and ag-focused software startups. The bad news? Well, I must confess…

SWARM Engineering is a creation of our times; the company combines the latest Machine Learning and Operational Research algorithms with an advanced multi-agent approach to solve complex problems in highly disruptive environments, such as a supply chain in a pandemic. Ten years ago, humanity couldn’t have solved many of the challenges we tackle today because AI research wasn’t as advanced, and most organizations lacked the necessary data to train machine learning systems.

We’re excited to publish our inaugural SWARM Engineering Podcast! Our first guest is Claudia Roessler, Director at Microsoft Cloud for Industry. You can listen along as they talk about about sustainability and solving problems in the food value chain, using AI data science and machine learning.

IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, SWARM Engineering announced two additions to its distinguished Advisory Board. Vonnie Estes and Dr. Magarit Khachatryan will join the SWARM Advisory Board to provide key insights and guidance to the Board of Directors, committees of the Board, and the executive leadership.