The AI Workflow

Join Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham as they chat with Yunus Mohammed, a Principal Instructor at Oracle University, about the key stages of AI model development. From gathering and preparing data to selecting, training, and deploying models, learn how each phase impacts AI’s real-world effectiveness. The discussion also highlights why monitoring AI performance and addressing evolving challenges are critical for long-term success.

 

AI for You: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/ai-for-you/152601/252500

 

Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/

 

X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu

 

Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.

 

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Episode Transcript:

00:00

Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we’ll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let’s get started!

00:25

Lois: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I’m Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead: Editorial Services.

Nikita: Hey everyone! In our last episode, we spoke about generative AI and gen AI agents. Today, we’re going to look at the key stages in a typical AI workflow. We’ll also discuss how data quality, feedback loops, and business goals influence AI success. With us today is Yunus Mohammed, a Principal Instructor at Oracle University. 

01:00

Lois: Hi Yunus! We're excited to have you here! Can you walk us through the various steps in developing and deploying an AI model? 

Yunus: The first point is the collect data. We gather relevant data, either historical or real time. Like customer transactions, support tickets, survey feedbacks, or sensor logs. A travel company, for example, can collect past booking data to predict future demand. So, data is the most crucial and the important component for building your AI models.

But it's not just the data. You need to prepare the data. In the prepared data process, we clean, organize, and label the data. AI can't learn from messy spreadsheets. We try to make the data more understandable and organized, like removing duplicates, filling missing values in the data with some default values or formatting dates. All these comes under organization of the data and give a label to the data, so that the data becomes more supervised.

After preparing the data, I go for selecting the model to train. So now, we pick what type of model fits your goals. It can be a traditional ML model or a deep learning network model, or it can be a generative model. The model is chosen based on the business problems and the data we have.

So, we train the model using the prepared data, so it can learn the patterns of the data. Then after the model is trained, I need to evaluate the model. You check how well the model performs. Is it accurate? Is it fair? The metrics of the evaluation will vary based on the goal that you're trying to reach.

If your model misclassifies emails as spam and it is doing it very much often, then it is not ready. So I need to train it further. So I need to train it to a level when it identifies the official mail as official mail and spam mail as spam mail accurately. 

After evaluating and making sure your model is perfectly fitting, you go for the next step, which is called the deploy model. Once we are happy, we put it into the real world, like into a CRM, or a web application, or an API. So, I can configure that with an API, which is application programming interface, or I add it to a CRM, Customer Relationship Management, or I add it to a web application that I've got.

Like for example, a chatbot becomes available on your company's website, and the chatbot might be using a generative AI model. Once I have deployed the model and it is working fine, I need to keep track of this model, how it is working, and need to monitor and improve whenever needed. So I go for a stage, which is called as monitor and improve.

So AI isn't set in and forget it. So over time, there are lot of changes that is happening to the data. So we monitor performance and retrain when needed. An e-commerce recommendation model needs updates as there might be trends which are shifting. 

So the end user finally sees the results after all the processes. A better product, or a smarter service, or a faster decision-making model, if we do this right. That is, if we process the flow perfectly, they may not even realize AI is behind it to give them the accurate results. 

04:59

Nikita: Got it. So, everything in AI begins with data. But what are the different types of data used in AI development? 

Yunus: We work with three main types of data: structured, unstructured, and semi-structured. Structured data is like a clean set of tables in Excel or databases, which consists of rows and columns with clear and consistent data information.
Unstructured is messy data, like your email or customer calls that records videos or social media posts, so they all comes under unstructured data. 

Semi-structured data is things like logs on XML files or JSON files. Not quite neat but not entirely messy either. So they are, they are termed semi-structured. So structured, unstructured, and then you've got the semi-structured.

05:58

Nikita: Ok… and how do the data needs vary for different AI approaches? 

Yunus: Machine learning often needs labeled data. Like a bank might feed past transactions labeled as fraud or not fraud to train a fraud detection model. But machine learning also includes unsupervised learning, like clustering customer spending behavior. Here, no labels are needed.

In deep learning, it needs a lot of data, usually unstructured, like thousands of loan documents, call recordings, or scan checks. These are fed into the models and the neural networks to detect and complex patterns.

Data science focus on insights rather than the predictions. So a data scientist at the bank might use customer relationship management exports and customer demographies to analyze which age group prefers credit cards over the loans.

Then we have got generative AI that thrives on diverse, unstructured internet scalable data. Like it is getting data from books, code, images, chat logs. So these models, like ChatGPT, are trained to generate responses or mimic the styles and synthesize content.

So generative AI can power a banking virtual assistant trained on chat logs and frequently asked questions to answer customer queries 24/7.

07:35

Lois: What are the challenges when dealing with data? 

Yunus: Data isn't just about having enough. We must also think about quality. Is it accurate and relevant? Volume. Do we have enough for the model to learn from? And is my data consisting of any kind of unfairly defined structures, like rejecting more loan applications from a certain zip code, which actually gives you a bias of data?

And also the privacy. Are we handling personal data responsibly or not? Especially data which is critical or which is regulated, like the banking sector or health data of the patients. Before building anything smart, we must start smart. 

08:23

Lois: So, we’ve established that collecting the right data is non-negotiable for success. Then comes preparing it, right? 

Yunus: This is arguably the most important part of any AI or data science project. Clean data leads to reliable predictions. Imagine you have a column for age, and someone accidentally entered an age of like 999. That's likely a data entry error. Or maybe a few rows have missing ages. So we either fix, remove, or impute such issues.

This step ensures our model isn't misled by incorrect values. Dates are often stored in different formats. For instance, a date, can be stored as the month and the day values, or it can be stored in some places as day first and month next. We want to bring everything into a consistent, usable format. This process is called as transformation.

The machine learning models can get confused if one feature, like example the income ranges from 10,000 to 100,000, and another, like the number of kids, range from 0 to 5. So we normalize or scale values to bring them to a similar range, say 0 or 1. So we actually put it as yes or no options.

So models don't understand words like small, medium, or large. We convert them into numbers using encoding. One simple way is assigning 1, 2, and 3 respectively. And then you have got removing stop words like the punctuations, et cetera, and break the sentence into smaller meaningful units called as tokens. This is actually used for generative AI tasks.

In deep learning, especially for Gen AI, image or audio inputs must be of uniform size and format. 

10:31

Lois: And does each AI system have a different way of preparing data? 

Yunus: For machine learning ML, focus is on cleaning, encoding, and scaling. Deep learning needs resizing and normalization for text and images. Data science, about reshaping, aggregating, and getting it ready for insights. The generative AI needs special preparation like chunking, tokenizing large documents, or compressing images.

11:06

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11:50

Nikita: Welcome back! Yunus, how does a user choose the right model to solve their business problem? 

Yunus: Just like a business uses different dashboards for marketing versus finance, in AI, we use different model types, depending on what we are trying to solve. Like classification is choosing a category. Real-world example can be whether the email is a spam or not. Use in fraud detection, medical diagnosis, et cetera.

So what you do is you classify that particular data and then accurately access that classification of data. Regression, which is used for predicting a number, like, what will be the price of a house next month? Or it can be a useful in common forecasting sales demands or on the cost. Clustering, things without labels. So real-world examples can be segmenting customers based on behavior for targeted marketing. It helps discovering hidden patterns in large data sets. 

Generation, that is creating new content. So AI writing product description or generating images can be a real-world example for this. And it can be used in a concept of generative AI models like ChatGPT or Dall-E, which operates on the generative AI principles.

13:16

Nikita: And how do you train a model?

Yunus: We feed it with data in small chunks or batches and then compare its guesses to the correct values, adjusting its thinking like weights to improve next time, and the cycle repeats until the model gets good at making predictions. So if you're building a fraud detection system, ML may be enough.

If you want to analyze medical images, you will need deep learning. If you're building a chatbot, go for a generative model like the LLM. And for all of these use cases, you need to select and train the applicable models as and when appropriate.

14:04

Lois: OK, now that the model’s been trained, what else needs to happen before it can be deployed?

Yunus: Evaluate the model, assess a model's accuracy, reliability, and real-world usefulness before it's put to work. That is, how often is the model right? Does it consistently perform well? Is it practical in the real world to use this model or not?

Because if I have bad predictions, doesn't just look bad, it can lead to costly business mistakes. Think of recommending the wrong product to a customer or misidentifying a financial risk. 

So what we do here is we start with splitting the data into two parts. So we train the data by training data.

And this is like teaching the model. And then we have got the testing data. This is actually used for checking how well the model has learned. So once trained, the model makes predictions. We compare the predictions to the actual answers, just like checking your answer after a quiz.

We try to go in for tailored evaluation based on AI types. Like machine learning, we care about accuracy in prediction. Deep learning is about fitting complex data like voice or images, where the model repeatedly sees examples and tunes itself to reduce errors.

Data science, we look for patterns and insights, such as which features will matter. In generative AI, we judge by output quality. Is it coherent, useful, and is it natural? 

The model improves with the accuracy and the number of epochs the training has been done on. 

15:59

Nikita: So, after all that, we finally come to deploying the model…

Yunus: Deploying a model means we are integrating it into our actual business system. So it can start making decisions, automating tasks, or supporting customer experiences in real time. Think of it like this. Training is teaching the model. Evaluating is testing it. And deployment is giving it a job. 

The model needs a home either in the cloud or inside your company's own servers.

Think of it like putting the AI in place where it can be reached by other tools. Exposed via API or embedded in an app, or you can say application, this is how the AI becomes usable. 

Then, we have got the concept of receives live data and returns predictions. So receives live data and returns prediction is when the model listens to real-time inputs like a user typing, or user trying to search or click or making a transaction, and then instantly, your AI responds with a recommendation, decisions, or results.

Deploying the model isn’t the end of the story. It is just the beginning of the AI's real-world journey. Models may work well on day one, but things change. Customer behavior might shift. New products get introduced in the market. Economic conditions might evolve, like the era of COVID, where the demand shifted and the economical conditions actually changed.

17:48

Lois: Then it’s about monitoring and improving the model to keep things reliable over time.

Yunus: The monitor and improve loop is a continuous process that ensures an AI model remains accurate, fair, and effective after deployment. The live predictions, the model is running in real time, making decisions or recommendations.

The monitor performance are those predictions still accurate and helpful. Is latency acceptable? This is where we track metrics, user feedbacks, and operational impact. Then, we go for detect issues, like accuracy is declining, are responses feeling biased, are customers dropping off due to long response times?

And the next step will be to reframe or update the model. So we add fresh data, tweak the logic, or even use better architectures to deploy the uploaded model, and the new version replaces the old one and the cycle continues again.

18:58

Lois: And are there challenges during this step?

Yunus: The common issues, which are related to monitor and improve consist of model drift, bias, and latency of failures. In model drift, the model becomes less accurate as the environment changes. Or bias, the model may favor or penalize certain groups unfairly. Latency or failures, if the model is too slow or fails unpredictably, it disrupts the user experience.

Let's take the loan approvals. In loan approvals, if we notice an unusually high rejection rate due to model bias, we might retrain the model with more diverse or balanced data. For a chatbot, we watch for customer satisfaction, which might arise due to model failure and fine-tune the responses for the model.

So in forecasting demand, if the predictions no longer match real trends, say post-pandemic, due to the model drift, we update the model with fresh data. 

20:11

Nikita: Thanks for that, Yunus. Any final thoughts before we let you go?

Yunus: No matter how advanced your model is, its effectiveness depends on the quality of the data you feed it. That means, the data needs to be clean, structured, and relevant. It should map itself to the problem you're solving.

If the foundation is weak, the results will be also. So data preparation is not just a technical step, it is a business critical stage. Once deployed, AI systems must be monitored continuously, and you need to watch for drops in performance for any bias being generated or outdated logic, and improve the model with new data or refinements. That's what makes AI reliable, ethical, and sustainable in the long run.

21:09

Nikita: Yunus, thank you for this really insightful session. If you’re interested in learning more about the topics we discussed today, go to mylearn.oracle.com and search for the AI for You course. 

Lois: That’s right. You’ll find skill checks to help you assess your understanding of these concepts. In our next episode, we’ll discuss the idea of buy versus build in the context of AI. Until then, this is Lois Houston…

Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off!

21:39

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