Being adaptive means that we respond to change, but it also means we may create change. When the wind blows, you can be cold, put a jacket on, or get out of the wind.

Adaptive intelligence-a subset of artificial intelligence (AI)-is the analytics layer for AI and machine learning applications, and it's the intersection of human judgment and machine automation. It's also the topic of a recent article penned by Rich Clayton, vice president of the Business Analytics Product Group at Oracle.

Clayton's premise is that the next phase of business analytics will use data as its core and combine it with human knowledge and experiences programmed in. Current examples include personalized shopping, self-driving vehicles, online wealth management, and virtual assistants.