Is Data the New Oil?

I thought water was the new oil.  Either way, good LinkedIn post from Kshitij Kumar:

"Just as oil is a very valuable and expensive commodity, so has data quickly become a very valuable commodity. Information is power. Data provides information when processed properly, and therefore is capable of providing power.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are both applied to data and can be used to generate value. AI without data is like a car without oil - each might look very cool, but neither will function and is practically useless on its own.

From Customer Experience management to generating targeted advertising information, from providing the Next Best Offer for a customer browsing an organization's website, to predicting and preventing a fraud event before it happens for a financial organization, data can be used to generate immense value.

Data is the new oil because it is invaluable, powers pretty much everything in the online world, and will soon power all aspects of our lives. Those who learn to harness the power of data will benefit immensely from it - monetarily and otherwise, just like those who learnt to harness oil benefited from it."