Oracle introduces new AI agents to enhance business operations

Oracle has announced the general availability of its new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Generative AI (GenAI) Agents. These agents incorporate retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) capabilities and enhanced Oracle AI innovations. The new offerings aim to simplify the application of AI in real-world business operations for customers, allowing them to transform their data into a competitive advantage.

The initial offering in the series of OCI GenAI Agents is the RAG Agent. It provides out-of-the-box RAG capabilities, enabling customers to begin utilising the technology without needing to handle manual processes like agent planning, retrieval, reranking, generation, and integration. A unique self-check feature aims to reduce hallucinations, allowing businesses to adopt RAG technologies to streamline operations without heavy investment in research and development.

OCI GenAI Agents integrate with Oracle Database 23ai AI Vector Search, facilitating fast similarity queries on enterprise data stored in the database. Subscribers to Oracle Database 23ai on OCI benefit from an automation layer that executes RAG and similarity search functions without the need to move data to a separate vector database. For those seeking open-source solutions for their generative AI workloads, the OCI GenAI Agents service also supports OCI Search with OpenSearch.

"AI is driving breakthroughs and efficiencies at an unprecedented pace, leading to new business models, applications, and innovation across industries," said Greg Pavlik, executive vice president of AI and Data Management Services, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Pavlik added, "With the OCI Generative AI Agents service, Oracle Database 23ai customers on OCI can subscribe to a fully managed RAG service that enables them to talk to their data. It's AI designed for companies looking to put AI into their real-world production environments quickly—by bringing AI to their data."

Key use cases for OCI GenAI Agents span various sectors. In call centres, the technology aims to enhance customer satisfaction by providing more accurate responses and increasing the volume of query resolutions. In the legal domain, researchers can find answers more rapidly by conversing with AI rather than manually searching through court record databases. Financial teams can leverage AI to understand customer purchase history and trends through natural language queries instead of running complex reports. Moreover, recruiters can source potential hires more easily by typing natural language queries rather than constructing database queries.

Oracle is also introducing various AI innovations aimed at making AI solutions more versatile and accessible for both developers and business users. OCI Generative AI facilitates the seamless integration of versatile language models into multiple use cases, including writing assistance, summarisation, analysis, and chat. Customers can now access Meta's Llama 3.1 models and Cohere Command R, Command R+, and Embed models for various AI needs.

OCI Data Science is another focus area, providing tools for data scientists to build, train, deploy, and manage AI models. Recent updates to the no-code AI Quick Actions feature include support for OCI Ampere A1 shape and the ability to import models from Hugging Face into OCI Data Science with minimal effort.

Other Oracle AI services also feature significant updates. OCI Language now supports sophisticated text analysis and machine translation in over 100 languages, and a new Protected Health Information (PHI) feature extends the existing Personally Identifying Information (PII) service. OCI Document Understanding has introduced new models specifically trained for the healthcare field, enabling more efficient and accurate data extraction from medical identification cards.

OCI Vision now aids developers in analysing videos frame-by-frame for object identification, label detection, text recognition, and more, while OCI Speech offers real-time transcription capabilities and synthesises speech from text with natural voices. Lastly, Oracle Code Assist promises to boost developer productivity with intelligent suggestions for a range of programming languages.