According to Fortune Business Insights, the global market for data analytics is currently valued at more than $348.21 billion and will grow to $961.89 by 2032. North America takes nearly one-third of that market share.

By 2030, global data creation is projected to surpass 612 zettabytes, according to Statista. A zettabyte is 1 billion terabytes (TB), which is approximately all the grains of sands on all the world’s beaches. Just as it would be impossible for a team of humans to sift through each grain of sand on even a single beach, this amount of data necessitates automation.

Though the term “mining” has been used to describe the process of data analysis, this analogy is too simplistic, suggesting a false dichotomy of useless rock versus precious stones. Going through large data sets is more like searching through an antique store or flea market. Among piles of useless, outdated hand-me-downs and cheap trinkets, there are priceless artifacts and useful pieces, hiding behind mounds of old rags without any real sense of organization.

Admittedly, “data mining” has a better sound than “data antiquing.” Regardless of the metaphor, when seeking data-driven solutions to problems in business, there are some proven tools and strategies for getting the best use from large data.

Data mining makes use of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and statistics to glean patterns, oddities, and trends in data. Though intuition, human connection, and a keen eye for best practices will remain a significant part of operations for any business, analytics can improve overall company health.

The most successful hospitals use data analytics for risk stratification, quality of care, and patient flow/demand forecasting. Restaurants can use data to follow trends in social media to create popular seasonal items. A coffee shop or café can gather and analyze data for optimization of its menus and customer satisfaction, answering questions, such as, “How long will pumpkin spice lattes be in demand this year?” 

Businesses that utilize data analytics to improve customer relations can boost marketing effectiveness, optimize operations, and increase profitability. Though email surveys and suggestion boxes may be the most affordable option, even small businesses can benefit from using professional analytics on the pricing of goods and services.

Before venturing into the data field, it is important to set goals and ask the correct questions.

Are you trying to increase your customer base or expand into a new market? Are you suddenly losing profits and need to ascertain why? Do you simply want a redesign of the brand and want to know if the timing is right? (Here’s looking at you Cracker Barrel. Too soon?)

These goals will determine the categories required for collection. For rapid results, there are data platforms and marketplaces such as Datarade, Snowflake, and AWS Data Exchange. There are also specialized data providers, such as Experian, Equifax, or ZoomInfo. Google Cloud Analytics Hub, IBM, and CoreLogic are other well-known data resellers. Many of these companies also offer visualization packages and other services at a premium.

For small businesses, more affordable options exist (see sidebar). However the data is collected, the next step is classification into common categories (clustering). For readers with a penchant for programming, R and Python have nice packages for data analytics and visualization
of results.

Once the results are in, it is crucial to understand the meaning behind associations discovered between variables.

Predictability does not equate to inevitability. Finding a relationship between variables is the true value of data analytics; however, correlation does not imply causation. If there is an association between winter and an increased demand for peppermint-flavored products, then it would be wise to carry a few items for that target demographic. But market fatigue could result in a reduction in profits when trends suddenly shift. How long should these products be offered to optimize profitability? This is another important question that might require additional analytics, which brings us to the heart of the power of data analytics: Refine your goals, and iterate through the data when possible.

Effective methods for collecting data

Small businesses collect customer data through direct methods like surveys, interviews, and online forms, and indirect methods like website analytics, social media monitoring, and transaction tracking.
By using a combination of these techniques, businesses can gain insights into customer demographics, behaviors, and preferences
to improve products and services.

Direct methods

→ Surveys and questionnaires: Ask customers directly for feedback on their experience, preferences, and demographics through online or physical forms.

→ Interviews and focus groups: Conduct one-on-one or group conversations for more in-depth, qualitative feedback.

→ Online forms: Collect information
when customers sign up for newsletters, create accounts, or use contact forms on
your website.

→ Contests and promotions: Offer incentives for customers to provide their contact information and other relevant details.

Indirect methods

→ Website analytics: Use tools to track how customers interact with your site, including pages visited and time spent on each page.

→ Social media monitoring: Observe who interacts with your brand’s social media pages and what they are saying about your products and services.

→ Transaction tracking: Analyze purchase history to understand buying habits and preferences from point-of-sale or e-commerce platforms.

→ Observation: Watch how customers interact with your product or service in a physical or digital environment to see their behaviors in real-time.

→ CRM systems: Use customer relationship management software to centralize and organize customer data, interactions, and purchase history.

Beginning December 19, 2025, flyers can catch a nonstop daily flight from the Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport to the Miami International Airport.

“Florida is a large state, and intrastate air travel has been historically limited outside of big cities,” says Tracy Stage, Okaloosa County airports director. “A direct VPS-MIA route makes it much easier for residents to visit family, attend events, or vacation within Florida, instead of treating in-state travel like an interstate trek.”

Previously, travelers would either have to drive 10-plus hours or catch connecting flights in hubs such as Atlanta, Charlotte, or Dallas. Fares will start around $292 roundtrip, making it affordable for both leisure and business travelers.

Unlike many seasons routes at regional airports, VPS-MIA is scheduled to operate daily, year-round, giving travelers consistent options.

This easy breezy flight is also a delight for those seeking to go international with Miami being a hub for travel to Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Now, passengers will no longer have to fly north and connect in order to fly south to Miami and beyond.

This flight option is particularly appealing to the business traveller as Miami has become a hotspot for finance, technology, health, and international trade.

“Attending a conference there often means rubbing shoulders with industry leaders from multiple sectors,” said Stage. “It’s where business meets the beach, and every trip is both productive and unforgettable. Many professionals extend their trip to enjoy Miami’s beaches, nightlife, or nearby destinations like the Everglades or the Keys. That makes conferences in Miami especially attractive.”

Venues such as the Miami Beach Convention Center alongside luxury hotels with on-property conference spaces, equate to business events the can scale from small workshops to global conventions.

Additionally, this flight is beneficial to the Emerald Coast region’s economy. Travelers in the manufacturing and military industries seek the region for business, then the white sand beaches, world-class fishing, and small-town coastal charm as a reprieve from their big-city beaches.

“Visitors from Miami and abroad should know that Destin offers a peaceful, family-friendly, nature-rich getaway,” said Stage.

Artificial Intelligence is seeping into industries from visual arts and journalism to computer programming and research. Soon, stories found in magazines may require a label—“Created by a Human”—to let readers know the copy they are consuming is not computer generated.

As companies like OpenAI bring artificial intelligence into the mainstream, many may begin to wonder if Skynet, a superintelligent, sentient computer system bent on global domination, is right around the corner. Whether or not the robot uprising is nigh might still be up for debate, but there is no escaping the pervasiveness of machine learning and AI in our society.

In the 3rd century B.C., the Egyptians invented the water clock, which is likely the first feedback control system on record. The first “closed-loop” automatic control system was invented in 1624 by Cornelis Drebbel, who designed a mercury thermostat to regulate the temperature of a chicken incubator by controlling a furnace.

Inventors have iterated these designs, improving functionality with each step. Almost 400 years later, home temperatures can be adjusted from the other side of the planet with a signal sent from a handheld smartphone.

Humanity is pressing ever forward, seeing to the automation of monotonous tasks like laundering clothes, washing dishes and mowing the lawn. Few stop to consider these wonders or the generations of thinkers required to create such marvels.

In business, time is money. Capitalism demands efficiency, driving innovation inexorably toward an automation boom. Scarcity necessitates speed and accuracy to preserve resources. For Julia Smith, PhD, a scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, or the MagLab, extra time is never a luxury.

“We try to maximize the time that we can give to our users,” who travel from all over the world to conduct research at the MagLab, Smith explained. “So everything has to work when they come.”

The largest and highest powered magnet lab in the world is available to researchers for free, provided they can book highly coveted and sought-after timeslots. Bookings can take years to align and can be further complicated by failures in equipment, some of which was developed at the MagLab and only exists at its facilities.

“With limited resources in time, money and personnel, we have to find clever ways to go about things,” Smith said.

The MagLab employs diagnostic equipment to monitor potential points of failure, but much like analog traffic cameras, these were traditionally only used when a mishap occurred. By the time the lab realized something was wrong, the accident had already occurred. Recording equipment is useful for establishing fault; however, much like the crunched vehicles blocking a major intersection, the damage has already been done.

This is where artificial intelligence comes to the rescue. No, there is no
iRobot in her lab. Smith and her team do not deploy repair-bots around the lab to fix faulty equipment. That level of science fiction has yet to become reality. The use of machine learning is less obvious than it is in film, but the uses provide incalculable value to researchers.

“We record signals while we work,” Smith said. While traditionally data on magnetic health can be pulled manually for analysis, real-time analysis is occurring behind the scenes, Smith explained, adding, “This is where machine learning and algorithms come in for us.”

Magnetic health is monitored with Time-Series Forecasting. Test ramps are generated for coils using increased current in resistive magnets. Thresholds for acceptable limits are established using second order polynomial fits with coil resistance as a function of the current. Expected resistance can be established for coils and used to measure deviations in a time-series representation, allowing faculty at the MagLab to predict when coils might need to be replaced ahead of failures.

Their very clever machine-learning algorithm generates a seven-day deviation forecast, then messages Smith and her colleagues on Slack, enabling “proactive coil performance monitoring” for eight different magnets at the MagLab.

Another problem area where machine learning assists Smith’s team is Concept Drift Detection, “which is an abrupt or gradual change in the underlying distribution of a target variable and can be a sign of abnormal environmental changes or faults in an industrial process.”

Data mining research at the facility is focusing on specific parameters affecting system performance of the magnets, such as component aging or gradual deterioration. To solve this problem, the MagLab implemented the Page-Hinkley Algorithm to identify bore-tube failures. This test provides four to six weeks of notice before a system failure, allowing for planned maintenance with minimal disruption to experimentation.

Additional AI systems in the works are being developed to model seasonal patterns in coil resistance deviation trends, as well as to detect hazardous equipment conditions through analysis of ultrasonic recordings.

The algorithms are self-correcting, fully automated, and capable of communicating their findings to researchers. Although revolutionary, they are far from sentient and still heavily dependent upon humans to be utilized, maintained, or have any value.

However, in terms of saving time and resources for innovative researchers at the MagLab, AI systems are taking over.

Long before Tim Shoop founded Digital Boardwalk, he lived in a tent on the beaches of North Malibu. In his mid-20s, Shoop moved to the West Coast to pursue an acting career. While finishing up his service in the Navy, Shoop read a People magazine about how Brad Pitt got his start and thought, “I can do that.” After exiting the Navy, he shipped his belongings to his parents in Pensacola and set out to become famous.

“With no contacts or job prospects,” Shoop said, “I packed my Jeep with camping supplies, clothes, and $300 in cash, and set off for Hollywood.”

He spent nearly three months on the beach, bathing at public showers and living on cheap foods, such as Ramen, tuna, crackers, and beanie weenies. Shoop believes, “This period of voluntary homelessness allowed me to live within my means and focus on my larger goals,”—which at the time was to afford meals better than Ramen noodles. While trying to catch his big break, Shoop fell back on the one thing he knew well. 

“I got my first computer when I was 13,” Shoop recalled. He learned how computers worked and taught himself to write code. He had the online handle, Maniac, which he used to connect with other tech enthusiasts online as a kid. He had also been involved with theater and acting in his youth.

“So, it was acting or tech,” he said.

While in California, he pursued both. In between auditioning for gigs, he earned a living in IT and took the opportunity to learn all aspects of the business, from answering phones, sales, and installing printers for Jamie Lee Curtis and other celebrities, but this wasn’t enough to sate his ambition. 

One night, powered by a vision and copious amounts of coffee, Shoop wrote his first business plan, called ShoopTek Industries. He found investors and pitched his idea, but nothing came of it. Pushing 30, Shoop looked at the bigger picture and decided to leave Hollywood. Though he never ended up on the big screen, he values his time chasing that dream.

“I believe everyone has a unique path to follow,” Shoop said of his eccentric past, “and I will always have a fun story to tell my grandkids.”

Shoop moved to Pensacola, where he began working for Steve Jones selling computer training. At the same time, he launched New Vision Computers, taking contracts to build custom computers.

After growing into a multi-location retail chain, Shoop met with a broker to evaluate his company and was told the company was not worth much and a waste of the broker’s time. Though Shoop now agrees with the broker’s assessment, at the time, the news was devastating.

“After the meeting,” Shoop said, “I sat in my car with tears in my eyes feeling disheartened.” 

His lowest point was not homelessness or rejections from his acting pursuits, it was that moment when he realized his business was not viable for the long run.

“I was $200,000 to $300,000 in debt,” he recalled, and the broker had evaluated his business at about that much. 

Shoop decided to pivot his business to include a plan for recurring monthly revenue from clients—a fundamental component the broker had said he was missing. This new business, called The Red Door Project, which got its name based on the door color of the small room he worked out of, was to sell IT as a monthly service. He took the idea to one of his major clients who rejected him outright.

“This was before Netflix had normalized subscription fees,” Shoop said, so it was a hard sell, but Shoop persisted, and it paid off. 

The Red Door Project evolved into his current company, Digital Boardwalk, which handles IT support for small- to mid-sized companies and offers “a complete IT team for less than in-house staff.” 

Additionally, the company provides proactive solutions to technology problems, cybersecurity, and growth-model planning for expanding businesses. With the advent of artificial intelligence and more advanced machine-learning models, Shoop and his teams are aware that in addition to providing new services for the general populace and consumers, any evolutions in technology will benefit unethical actors as well.

“AI has the potential to be a transformative technology, but without proper control and protection, it can be exploited,” Shoop said of the dangers of AI. “We are already witnessing AI being utilized to enhance cyberattacks. Its proficiency in natural language processing enables attackers to craft campaigns in multiple languages with near-perfect grammar, spelling, and tone.”

A decade ago, polymorphic malware changed the landscape of cyber defense, which is code that utilizes a mutation engine to modify its structure enough to avoid detection from malware scanners while maintaining its root function to steal data. With AI, malicious operators can utilize more sophisticated means
of cyberattacks.

“This evolution makes it increasingly challenging for cyber defenses to detect threats and for end users to recognize them,” Shoop explained, but that, “Time is an ever-moving constant, and with it comes inevitable change.”

Few will refute that AI is the new proverbial Pandora’s box. Now that our digital lives are permeated by the technology, there is no off switch. For good or ill, artificial intelligence is the new must-have search phrase used in marketing strategies, pitch decks, and grant proposals surrounding innovative technology for the foreseeable future.

“It is essential to embrace it. At our company, we utilize Microsoft Copilot, among other AI tools, and integrate it into our customers’ environments,” Shoop said, who takes the optimistic approach that AI will not replace jobs but enhance efficiency and job satisfaction, adding, “For businesses, it is a tool that will help achieve more and remain competitive in the marketplace.”

His podcast, Nerds on Tap, meets with business leaders to discuss such matters as entrepreneurship and the impacts of technology on business while enjoying brews provided by local pubs, where they promise, an “unscripted journey filled with impromptu laughter, compelling tech anecdotes, and a hearty dose of beer trivia.”

When Dr. Jaromy Kuhl acted as dean for the Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering at the University of West Florida in Pensacola and discovered graduation rates were only at 19 percent, he decided to take the initiative to change this number.

In collaboration with Dr. Anthony Okafor, a professor in the college’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Kuhl developed a new tool in 2018 to increase academic progress rates (APR) and graduation metrics in the form of a student success dashboard.

Currently dubbed the Predictive Analytics and Modeling (PAM) Lab Dashboard until an official name is patented, the tool is housed under the university’s Institute for Analytics and Industry Advancement, which is devoted to cultivating user-friendly analytics that inform data-driven decision making and predictions to improve the success of educational institutions and organizations.

“The PAM Lab Dashboard was cultivated on UWF grounds to address the needs of our students and administrators, but now we’re expanding to hopefully help universities with the same metrics as well,” said PAM Lab Director of Business Development Lesley Cox, who oversees the commercialization and expansion of the lab’s services. “We’re under NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] with a couple of universities currently, so I’m not allowed to disclose their names, but we have steady, achievable goals over the next few years to get more on board.”

The dashboard utilizes advanced predictive modeling and data visualization to personalize student success and that of the overall institution campus wide and functions to offer a comprehensive view of an institution’s health by integrating data across student demographics, course performance levels, and advisory information.

“My personal favorite feature of this tool is its ability to track at-risk students at early identification, so we can allow for timely intervention,” Cox said. “So, we track demographics from where a student went to high school and pre-college factors to on-campus statistics such as course pass rates, how often they switch majors, how many hours they take at a time, and financial aid considerations. All of that data can be used to predict and analyze future trends of how that student may perform within certain majors and programs.”

The lab uses several mathematical methods to create specific algorithms tailored to each student, Cox explained. “Much of this involves statistics machine learning and network analysis, multivariate regression, clustering classification analysis, market basket analysis (a data mining technique), and even just linear algebra,” she said.

The new algorithms expand data models to include previously unused confounding variables. For example, the consideration of whether a student took a foreign language in high school increases the predictive model’s accuracy in determining at-risk rates for first-time college students.

In addition to recording student performance, academic progress, retention, and risk levels to project prospective trends, Cox said the dashboard provides integrative tools to assist academic advisors in developing holistic action plans for students.

“Instead of being reactive, they can be proactive and have real-time interventions with students before they reach that overwhelming drop-out point,” Cox said. Too, college administrators can forecast the effect of new initiatives and potential strategies for further student support. 

While this product is the PAM lab’s pride and joy, they also offer customized data services for businesses and other institutions, such as consultant services to internal and external clients designed to assemble statistics for entities based on descriptive, diagnostic, prescriptive, predictive, and cognitive analytics. The aim of the services is to offer an examination of phenomena, how and why it occurred, how it may impact the future, and what should happen next to achieve success.

Cox said outside of education, they are primarily working in the health care sector, predicting patient outcomes with treatment plans.

“One of the things we are excited about is working with a specific health company to use historical data on treatment in cancer cells to come up with proper treatment plans,” Cox said. “We are also using a predictive model with health and behavior within sports as well as insurance cost reductions. We’re able to take everything a step further by developing industry-specific models and creating user-friendly interfaces.”

Their services provide a competitive advantage to businesses by aiding in “making data-driven decisions across the board, no matter what their background is,” Cox explained. At this writing, Cox said the PAM lab’s most current project is AI-assisted advising.

“Everyone is moving toward AI, so we have to as well,” she said. “Integrating AI will ensure we are using all our data efficiently and effectively. As it progresses and the dashboard grows, we most definitely will implement more AI on both the academic and business side of things.”

The PAM Lab measures its success through metrics. In 2020, UWF’s APR was 80.3 percent. In 2023, it increased to 86.8 percent.

“Knowing we were able to contribute to those metrics is a reward in itself for us,” Cox said. “And, I think it makes the [UWF]president really happy.”

Before retiring as the program administrator at the Okaloosa County School District’s Artificial Intelligence Institute, Jerral Horton facilitated a new age of technology for her district. During her tenure, Horton was keenly aware of the infiltration of artificial intelligence into everyday life.

Standing before the Triumph Gulf Coast Board last spring, Horton, explained that AI is more than just ChatGPT and self-driving cars.

It’s at work when, at the press of a button, you order a new pair of shoes from Amazon, when you ask Siri a question on your iPhone, and when you cash your latest paycheck via your banking app.

A quick search on Indeed.com, Horton said, will net you over 17,000 AI-related jobs on a local, national, and international scale, with local yearly salaries ranging from $60,000 to $192,000.

The Okaloosa County Schools personnel, given the rapid pace at which Narrow AI (artificial intelligence designed for a specific task) is advancing, approached Triumph Gulf Coast seeking a grant for career-based AI education.

In partnership with the University of Florida and its EQuIPD grant program, the district has launched a K-12 Artificial Intelligence Program, which supplies middle school and high school students with instruction in AI, machine learning, data science, and Python, the most popular computer programming language.

Horton said the AI curriculum was designed to lead to industry certifications useful to students seeking employment in the field or planning to pursue advanced AI studies. It is the first of its kind in Florida and was made possible by a Triumph Gulf Coast grant of $2,840,000. The district is providing matching funds.

Following the program’s inaugural year in 2022–23, Horton had good news for the Triumph board. Triumph required that at least 50 students qualify for certifications in year one. Choctawhatchee High School and the eight middle schools that offered AI instruction combined to sail past that goal; 214 certifications were awarded.

Getting there, Horton said, wasn’t easy.

“For starters, the framework being written by the University of Florida was not yet complete,” Horton said. “We had to use other course numbers that were not specifically designed for our track and adapt those standards to what we were trying to teach. Also, very few of our teachers, except for a few computer whizzes, knew how to code. We were flailing.”

The summer before the fall semester, instructors were sent to a weeklong, University of Florida-led “boot camp” in Orlando, where they learned the basics of Python coding and how to design lesson plans for their classes. Horton said she also purchased teacher education resources, such as Teachers Pay Teachers and Knowledge Pillars.

“They were having to learn along with their students,” Horton said, “and I honestly didn’t know if it was going to be successful. But, after the first semester, teachers found a resource that worked for them, the standards were officially completed by UF, and we finally had some framework from which we could work. We started buying into the program, and students started having success.”

As it stands, the program’s four-year track encompasses the following classes: Foundations of Programming for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and Database Design, Machine Learning and Applications, and a fourth-year capstone project and internship with industry partners.

Horton said they will continue to track industry needs, and as of this year, an advisory board has been established to create partnerships with local industries for the 2025-26 school year. The idea is to create a talent pipeline for places such as Eglin Air Force Base, local software developers, and companies that rely on AI.

“As of this school year, we have just begun implementing the second-year course,” said Horton. “We have added Crestview High School and Baker, a K-12 school, and currently have 392 students enrolled in the program, with 41 in the data science course.”

Dottie Holland, a teacher at Choctawhatchee High School, has just begun instructing second-year students.

“This phase of learning centers on importing and processing data through Python libraries and packages,” Holland said. “Students are guided through the entire data processing lifecycle encompassing data acquisition, purification, analysis, and communication of findings.”

Holland said she is excited about delving into the question, which often looms in her students’ minds: “How will learning this benefit me?”

“My aim is to address that comprehensively,” Holland said. “By showcasing success stories of past students who have gone on to make meaningful contributions in their careers, I hope to underline the tangible value that our curriculum brings. And, I plan to create opportunities for students to engage in real-world projects to give them a taste of what lies beyond the classroom.”

Horton said plans to begin incorporating elementary school pullout programs were an ongoing project this past summer. According to her, Destin Elementary School is “just about ready to go, where fourth-grade teachers will begin taking their students to the school’s STEM lab that we’ve recently outfitted with new furniture, storage bins, and frontline teaching technology.”

As of this writing, plans are in the works to add Wright and Elliott Point Elementary Schools.

Both Horton and Holland are optimistic about the program’s progress.

“The program’s evolution hinges on a twofold approach: incorporating cutting-edge tools and technologies and deepening the connection between learning and real-world impact,” Holland said. “By doing so, we ensure that our students not only graduate with knowledge but with the confidence and capability to tackle the challenges of the data-driven world that awaits them.”

Teaching is stressful. The nonprofit RAND Corporation found in 2021 that educators reported job-related stress at double the average rate of all other professions. Surely, the some 9,500 K-12 teaching vacancies in Florida have added to the burdens on instructional staffs.

Destin resident Matthew Pace, the senior director of enterprise information technology and security for New York-based Merlyn Mind, believes AI can help.

With over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, Pace oversees AI development at Merlyn Mind. Previously, he worked as the IT director for the City of Destin.

Pace understands classroom challenges from the teacher’s perspective. He comes from a long line of educators.

Merlyn Mind gave Pace an opportunity to give back to teachers. Merlyn Mind’s first product, Merlyn, is described on the company’s website as an “AI-powered digital assistant purpose-built for education.”

Technological implementations such as Canvas and SMART Boards are commonplace in the K-12 environment. Unfortunately, as much as these tools assist teachers, they can also interfere with instruction due to technical difficulties or teacher unfamiliarity.

A University of Phoenix study found that 43 percent of teachers rate themselves as “average or below average” in dealing with technology.

The Merlyn digital assistant was developed in an effort to create a seamless, integrated classroom experience. The Symphony Classroom is Merlyn Mind’s hub device, a minimalist computer that connects all the different devices in a classroom into one intuitive platform. Teachers would no longer need to fiddle with remotes to find the correct input for their display; instead, they would ask Merlyn to “change to my overhead projector.”

Using its natural language processing, Merlyn recognizes voice commands.

“If you have a presentation queued, whether it’s Google Classroom or Microsoft PowerPoint, you can say, ‘Open my presentation on whales,’ and it will pull up,” Pace said. He explained that teachers can toggle through slides using their voice rather than a clicker or mouse. A student asking about the world’s largest ocean would be given the answer in a moment.

When asked how Merlyn might detect commands coming from a student, Pace said that although the AI is unable to discern a teacher’s voice specifically, “there are ways to turn off the microphones that are on the unit.”

Preliminary research shows promise for the burgeoning product. According to a study conducted by Creativity Labs, teachers at a Southern California charter school reported having “significantly more time for teaching and learning than a matched control group.”

However, in that same study, some teachers reported the device did not understand their inputs due to their English pronunciation. Given the diverse spectrum of educators in the country, as the study notes, this implicit bias could present an obstacle to Merlyn’s wider adoption and usage if left uncorrected.

Parents and educators may hesitate at the thought of AI being implemented in their children’s classrooms. Pace believes that concerns about AI, stemming from science fiction or the possibility of job loss, are likely to prove unwarranted.

“AI is a computer program,” he said. “Humans are programming it to do a task we want it to do.”

Elaborating further on job security for laborers, Pace said that he sees AI helping with “menial tasks” and “increasing efficiency across the board.” His capstone project for Rutgers University explored how a chatbot could help the staff of a public entity by decreasing the time spent answering common questions from citizens.

Pace does not see AI as mitigating human development, either. He compared AI to a calculator. In his eyes, both are simply tools meant to assist people in completing work
and research.

“You can do things faster, but you still have to show your work,” he said.

Pace believes people should “focus on the benefits of AI and making sure we have regulations in place” to ensure we make the most of the industry’s inevitable growth. He wants people to make an effort to get acquainted with upcoming technology and artificial intelligence.

“Understanding it is better than fearing it,” he said.