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  • Not So Fast: Tesla Plows Into Overturned Truck in Autopilot Failure

    Not So Fast: Tesla Plows Into Overturned Truck in Autopilot Failure

    Autonomous driving critics were handed another example supporting their skepticism, as a Tesla Model 3 plowed into an overturned truck.

    The accident occurred in Taiwan, on the National Highway 1. In video provided by a Twitter user, a truck is clearly overturned in the far left lane. Rather than braking or moving to avoid it, the Tesla continues toward it at full speed, with only a single attempt at braking shortly before the impact. Whether that was the Autopilot system or the driver attempting to brake at the last minute remains to be seen. Whatever the case, it was too little, too late.

    In the second video in the Twitter thread, the Tesla is shown completely impacted into the roof of the overturned truck. Even more distributing, despite the crash occurring at reasonably high speeds, the Tesla’s airbag doesn’t seem to have deployed.

    As Jalopnik points out, this isn’t the first time this kind of accident has happened, as Tesla’s Autopilot system seems to have trouble discerning large, immovable objects in its way.

    Needless to say, Tesla will need to make some serious improvements to its system before Autopilot can be completely trusted.

  • Journalists Beware: Microsoft Replacing News Producers With AI

    Journalists Beware: Microsoft Replacing News Producers With AI

    Microsoft is replacing approximately 50 news production workers with artificial intelligence (AI), according to reports.

    Approximately 50 employees who work producing news for MSN will not have their contracts renewed, as their jobs will now be handled by AI. According to The Seattle Times, the move only impacts contractors working through staffing agencies. Full-time, in-house employees will evidently keep their jobs.

    Much of the “work involves using algorithms to identify trending news stories from dozens of publishing partners and to help optimize the content by rewriting headlines or adding better accompanying photographs or slide shows.”

    AI has been replacing jobs in many industries, with news and writing being one of the latest impacted by the new technology.

  • Windows 10 Includes Improved Cortana

    Windows 10 Includes Improved Cortana

    Cortana has received some nice upgrades in Windows 10, with a focus on helping users be more productive.

    Cortana is Microsoft’s “personal productivity assistant,” and the company is doubling down in its efforts to make the assistant as helpful as possible. With an unprecedented number of people working from home, Microsoft sees an opportunity for Cortana to help users juggle the plethora of demands on their time.

    Cortana in Action
    Cortana in Action

    “To help you save time finding what you need and stay focused, we’re releasing a new chat-based Cortana experience in Windows 10 focused on enhancing your productivity,” writes Andrew Shuman, Corporate Vice President, Cortana. “With this, you can ask Cortana using natural language to quickly check your schedule, connect with people, set reminders, or add tasks in Microsoft To Do. You can also find local information, get definitions, and keep track of the latest news, weather, and finance updates with Bing as a Cortana optional connected service.”

    Microsoft is also upgrading the Play My Emails feature in Outlook for iOS, giving Cortana new abilities, such as scheduling a meeting based on the contents of an email, or adding an email to your task list.

    The company is also bringing a new Briefing email to your inbox, courtesy of Cortana.

    “This personalized brief will appear automatically in your Outlook inbox near the start of your workday, providing intelligent, actionable recommendations of documents for you to review ahead of the day’s meetings and drawing your attention to pending requests or commitments from prior emails that you may want to follow up on,” continues Shuman. “This email will also make it easy for you to reserve “focus time” during your workday for uninterrupted focused work with Microsoft Teams notifications silenced.”

    The new features are nice additions, and will likely be a big hit with customers.

  • PAWR Receives US Funding to Use AI For Spectrum Sharing

    PAWR Receives US Funding to Use AI For Spectrum Sharing

    The Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) Project Office has received funding from the US Department of Defense (DOD) to use AI for wireless spectrum sharing.

    The PAWR is a consortium of 35 industry partners and is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The PAWR has received $2.7 million in funding from the DOD to develop and test AI to help solve the challenge of multiple companies using the same wireless spectrum.

    Under the current technology, spectrum is often licensed exclusively to a single company in a given market. Since there is a finite amount of spectrum available, a way to share blocks of spectrum between companies is desirable, although not without its challenges. The PAWR and DOD hope that AI can be used to allocate spectrum on-the-fly between companies, based on current demands.

    “When we started the PAWR program to develop and deploy four city-scale wireless testbeds across the country, it was with the intention of creating shared infrastructure to enable new research into advanced communications network technologies,” said Joe Kochan, Principal Investigator and Project Director for the PAWR Project Office. “We’re gratified to be able to support the DOD’s mission today to further network performance with greater spectrum sharing capabilities in the transition to 5G and beyond.”

    Should the PAWR’s research yield results, it could be a boon for the wireless industry and customers alike.

     

    Image Credit: PAWR

  • Facebook Beefs Up Messenger Security

    Facebook Beefs Up Messenger Security

    Facebook has announced significant new measures to increase the security of Messenger, as well as combat predators and scammers.

    Tech giants have increasingly been under pressure to do more to protect their users, especially minors. Social media and online platforms have become the tool of choice for many individuals looking to prey on children. Even adults are often faced with a plethora of security risks and potential scams.

    In a blog post, Jay Sullivan, Director of Product Management, Messenger Privacy and Safety, outlines a number of new features the company is implementing.

    Facebook is moving its messaging service to end-to-end encryption, which will provide a far greater degree of privacy. At the same time, it has required the company to come up with new ways to help protect its users, since end-to-end encryption prevents it from reading or monitoring messages. Instead, Facebook has turned to machine learning to analyze patterns of behavior that could indicate something is amiss.

    “Keeping minors safe on our platforms is one of our greatest responsibilities,” writes Sullivan. “Messenger already has special protections in place for minors that limit contact from adults they aren’t connected to, and we use machine learning to detect and disable the accounts of adults who are engaging in inappropriate interactions with children. Our new feature educates people under the age of 18 to be cautious when interacting with an adult they may not know and empowers them to take action before responding to a message.”

    Facebook is also using new safety notices as a way to better educate people and help them spot scams sooner. Overall, these features are welcome news from Facebook and should go a long way toward protecting its users.

  • Alibaba Will Invest $1.4 Billion in Smart Speaker AI

    Alibaba Will Invest $1.4 Billion in Smart Speaker AI

    Chinese tech giant Alibaba has announced its plans to invest $1.4 billion in smart speaker AI systems.

    Alibaba gained famed as an e-commerce giant, but has been working to branch into other markets. One of its endeavors is the Tmall Genie smart speaker, similar to the Amazon Echo, which is not available in China.

    According to U.S. News & World Report, “the money will be used to add more content to Tmall Genie, as well as develop proprietary technology, Alibaba said.”

    AI has become the new tech battleground, as companies across multiple industries race to harness the power and promise of the technology. It seems Alibaba is willing to spend big to make sure it’s not left behind.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDkOcp0h3Mw

  • Sony Semiconductor and Microsoft Partner on Enterprise Smart Cameras

    Sony Semiconductor and Microsoft Partner on Enterprise Smart Cameras

    Sony Semiconductor has announced it is partnering with Microsoft to develop AI-driven smart cameras for enterprise customers.

    The two companies will embed Microsoft’s Azure AI on the IMX500, an intelligent vision sensor that analyzes images taken with smart cameras. Azure IoT and Cognitive Services will also power an app that works in conjunction with the IMX500.

    “By linking Sony’s innovative imaging and sensing technology with Microsoft’s excellent cloud AI services, we will deliver a powerful and convenient platform to the smart camera market. Through this platform, we hope to support the creativity of our partners and contribute to overcoming challenges in various industries,” said Terushi Shimizu, Representative Director and President, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation.

    “Video analytics and smart cameras can drive better business insights and outcomes across a wide range of scenarios for businesses,” said Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president and commercial chief marketing officer at Microsoft. “Through this partnership, we’re combining Microsoft’s expertise in providing trusted, enterprise-grade AI and analytics solutions with Sony’s established leadership in the imaging sensors market to help uncover new opportunities for our mutual customers and partners.”

    The two companies will also provide a way for partners to use their own AI models if they choose. The combination of vision sensor and AI is a significant step forward in the enterprise smart camera market.

  • Robot Analyzes Your Gait to Detect Your Feelings

    Robot Analyzes Your Gait to Detect Your Feelings

    Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed ProxEmo, an “end-to-end emotion prediction algorithm for socially aware robot navigation among pedestrians.”

    ProxEmo is designed to help robots interpret human feeling, based on their gait. This enables a robot equipped with ProxEmo to better interact with humans, giving them more or less space depending on their mood.

    According to the researchers—Venkatraman Narayanan, Bala Murali Manoghar, Vishnu Sashank Dorbala, Dinesh Manocha, Aniket Bera—ProxEmo “achieves a mean average emotion prediction precision of 82.47% on the Emotion-Gait benchmark dataset,” and outperforms competing algorithms.

    ProxEmo is a novel approach to AI and robotics, and could have a wide range of applications as the technology matures.

  • Grammarly Makes First-Ever Investment In Docugami

    Grammarly Makes First-Ever Investment In Docugami

    Grammarly has announced its investment in Docugami, a company “developing AI to end document dysfunction.”

    The investment is the first in Grammarly’s 11-year history and was part of Docugami’s $10 million seed funding. The two companies share complimentary goals as Grammarly has increasingly turned to artificial intelligence (AI) to power its writing assistant.

    “Led by an experienced team of proven technology leaders and advisers, Docugami uses an array of AI techniques to help businesses of all sizes create critical business documents with greater precision and efficiency so they can derive greater productivity, compliance, and insight from their documents and business processes,” writes Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover. “Docugami’s technology understands the unique structure of documents and integrates with existing business processes.

    “This is Grammarly’s first investment in another company. We feel strong alignment with Docugami’s team and vision, and we took this step with much thought and deliberation. We’re excited to play a part in their future!”

    The news is another example of the transformative effect of AI on a wide range of industries. Grammarly and Docugami’s businesses obviously complement each other, and the future should hold exciting developments as the companies continue to work together.

  • Microsoft AI Virtual Summit Scheduled For June 2

    Microsoft AI Virtual Summit Scheduled For June 2

    Microsoft has announced a virtual AI summit with company executives and industry leaders, scheduled for June 2.

    Artificial intelligence has become one of the most important developing technologies, with companies large and small looking to make their mark. AI is seen as one of the pivotal pieces necessary for a number of industries to take shape, or to evolve to the next level. Multiple companies are working on AI-powered, self-driving vehicles that can make the kind of life-and-death decisions human drivers have been making for decades.

    In day-to-day businesses, AI is playing an increasingly important role in online moderation, search interpretation, content curation, supply chains and much more. AI is taking steps toward content creation and learning to display empathy and personality. In recent months, AI has even played a significant role in combatting the coronavirus pandemic, helping authorities monitor citizens and enforce social distancing.

    With AI playing such an important role in so many industries, Microsoft’s summit will focus on discussing how companies can navigate the challenges that come with developing AI.

    “Join Microsoft and industry leaders for a summit dedicated to thinking big about the critical role of artificial intelligence to help us navigate through these unprecedented times,” reads the announcement. “Every day, AI is proving its value in addressing massive change, disruption and unpredictability as well as enabling business continuity, greater agility and efficiencies. And there’s never been a better time to put AI into action in your organization. We’ll share timely and relevant examples of how customers are using AI to respond and recover from recent challenges and move forward with game-changing solutions to pressing business, government, education, civic, social and health issues.

    “This interactive gathering brings together prominent leaders to discuss the extraordinary possibilities of AI and practical steps to drive lasting impact.”

    Interested parties are encouraged to register for the summit now.

  • Facebook’s AI Chatbot Displays Empathy and Personality

    Facebook’s AI Chatbot Displays Empathy and Personality

    Facebook claims to have created an artificial intelligence chatbot that can display empathy, personality and knowledge.

    AI and chatbots don’t always go together in a positive way. Microsoft famously created “Tay,” a chatbot that used Twitter to interact with people. Within 24 hours, however, Microsoft had to shut it down because the bot had become a lewd, racist, Nazi.

    Facebook believes it has achieved what Microsoft didn’t, and even believes it has surpassed Google’s attempts at a human-esque chatbot. Facebook’s chatbot, “Blender,” was trained using 1.5 billion Reddit posts to help it gain the full range of human conversational interaction.

    According to BBC News, training Blender via Reddit has had disadvantages, including the chatbot using offensive language and sometimes making up facts. In spite of that, Blender still succeeded in sounding more human than Google’s chatbot.

    “We achieved this milestone through a new chatbot recipe that includes improved decoding techniques, novel blending of skills, and a model with 9.4 billion parameters, which is 3.6x more than the largest existing system,” a Facebook spokesperson told BBC.

    “This is the first chatbot to blend a diverse set of conversational skills together in one system.”

    “Building a truly intelligent dialogue agent that can chat like a human remains one of the largest open challenges in AI today.”

  • Volvo’s Self-Driving Cars Will Use LiDAR In 2022

    Volvo’s Self-Driving Cars Will Use LiDAR In 2022

    Volvo plans on using LiDAR in its next generation of self-driving cars, scheduled to begin production in 2022.

    LiDAR is a technology that uses lasers to scan the environment, creating a highly accurate, 3D map of the surroundings. Best of all, LiDAR enables devices to map the environment without an internet connection. In 2018, Volvo invested in Luminar, a Florida-based firm specializing in LiDAR technology, and now the company plans to put it to use in self-driving cars.

    “Soon, your Volvo will be able to drive autonomously on highways when the car determines it is safe to do so,” said Henrik Green, chief technology officer at Volvo Cars. “At that point, your Volvo takes responsibility for the driving and you can relax, take your eyes off the road and your hands off the wheel. Over time, updates over the air will expand the areas in which the car can drive itself. For us, a safe introduction of autonomy is a gradual introduction.”

    “Volvo is recognized as the pioneer of automotive safety, having driven standardization across the industry for the most advanced life-saving technologies,” said Austin Russell, founder and CEO of Luminar. “The next era of safety lies within autonomous driving and once again, Volvo has taken the lead with a major industry milestone. We’ve solved the key cost, performance, and auto-grade challenges to make series production possible, and alongside Volvo are making the technology available to the world.”

    One of the biggest challenges automakers have is convincing people to trust self-driving technology. With Volvo’s track record for safety, however, the company will likely have customers lined up to purchase their LiDAR-equipped vehicles.

  • How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    How Amperity Uses Machine Learning To Unlock Data and Supercharge Marketing

    “Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together,” says Matthew Biboud-Lubeck of Amperity. “We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer.”

    Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, VP of Strategic Services at Amperity, discusses how their platform helps brands create a complete view of their customers in an interview on the B2B Growth podcast:

    Helping Brands Create a Single View of Their Customers

    We are a CDP (customer data platform) based in Seattle that is helping brands create a single view of their customers and to unlock personalized experiences from that data. If you look back to the founding of Amperity about three years ago our founders were canvassing the marketplace. What you saw was a marketplace using a lot of buzzwords but having a lot of trouble executing them. You heard about personalization, customer 360, and a 360 view of the customer. Marketers across major consumer brands were super frustrated.

    They spent a fortune trying to cobble some view of their customer. They invested in technology to help them send better emails, to make their media more targeted, and to unveil better analytics. All of those tools that they have invested in talked about the notion of a single view of the customer because they fundamentally needed that to operate. The reality was that nobody was getting to the solution. We came in to say maybe there is a better way.

    Machine Learning Helps Brands Get To Nirvana

    There were two things that changed in the marketplace that we capitalized on. First of all, it was that cloud computing got a lot cheaper. It used to be that if you were a big brand and got hundreds of millions of customer interactions, it’s just a lot of data. Part of the reason that no one was able to create an easy solution to putting that all together was because it was cost prohibitive.

    The second really interesting evolution in the market is that machine learning has become much more mature. What we found was that everyone in the marketplace was using machine learning to make that last mile to the marketer a little bit better. It was used to decide which products to show a customer or to decide which offer to show a customer or to create a customer care solution that’s automated. You go online and type toward a solution and some bot talks back to you. Nobody was using machine learning to point at the underlying consumer data to help make sense of it and bring it together.

    We put together cloud computing that was scalable with better economics alongside a machine learning algorithm that we were pointing at the data to help make sense of it. We realized that what we had was a pretty scalable solution to help brands get to that nirvana of a single view of the customer. That’s how we were born. What’s interesting is that the customer data platform space is a little bit confusing. You have a lot of companies that started as something else that rebranded as a CDP. We were purpose-built from the ground up as a customer data platform designed to bring all of a brands data, reconcile that data to create a notion of identity on it and then to unleash that data back to the brand anywhere that they want to use that data.

    >>> Listen to the full B2B Growth podcast here.

  • OpenAI Releases Jukebox AI, A Music Generating Neural Net

    OpenAI Releases Jukebox AI, A Music Generating Neural Net

    And the award goes to…Rock and Roll Bot 101111. While that may not be something we are accustomed to hearing, it may be soon thanks to OpenAI.

    OpenAI is a research organization focused on artificial Intelligence (AI). It was founded in 2015 by Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Musk, in particular, has long been critical of AI, warning that it could bring about the downfall of the human race. OpenAI was founded to promote safe, responsible AI research and development.

    OpenAI’s latest announcement is “Jukebox, a neural net that generates music, including rudimentary singing, as raw audio in a variety of genres and artist styles.” Providing Jukebox with an artist, style and lyrics gives the AI the raw material it needs to produce a unique music sample from scratch.

    “We chose to work on music because we want to continue to push the boundaries of generative models,” reads OpenAI’s announcement. “Our previous work on MuseNet explored synthesizing music based on large amounts of MIDI data. Now in raw audio, our models must learn to tackle high diversity as well as very long range structure, and the raw audio domain is particularly unforgiving of errors in short, medium, or long term timing.”

    The accompanying paper goes further, saying “we show that our models can produce songs from highly diverse genres of music like rock, hip-hop, and jazz. They can capture melody, rhythm, long-range composition, and timbres for a wide variety of instruments, as well as the styles and voices of singers to be produced with the mu- sic. We can also generate novel completions of existing songs. Our approach allows the option to influence the generation process: by swapping the top prior with a conditional prior, we can condition on lyrics to tell the singer what to sing, or on midi to control the composition. We release our model weights and training and sampling code at https://github.com/openai/jukebox.”

    OpenAI is hiring and invites any interested in contributing to apply. In the meantime, Jukebox is another significant step forward for AI.

  • Preparing For The Reindustrialization Of America

    Preparing For The Reindustrialization Of America

    “If this truly is the Fourth Industrial Revolution it’ll be of the scale of the past three,” says legendary venture capitalist Duncan Davidson. “If we’re going to do this reindustrialization of America and prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it’s going to be more AI, more robotics, taking a lot of things like 3D printing, additive manufacturing it’s sometimes called, and putting it in scale operation in this country. Tech has a real part to play in that but this will pervade the whole country.”

    Duncan Davidson, General Partner at Bullpen Capital, says that the reindustrialization of America will be powered by tech but pervade the whole country in an interview on CNBC:

    Preparing For The Reindustrialization Of America

    Amazon might become a $2 trillion company. Digital ads, I think old media is really going to be in trouble here, Retail — if people can get by without the ads in the local newspaper and have the same sales why do they keep advertising? Remote collaboration — that’s an obvious category (to invest in). I think the two that are less obvious are first the gig economy, its thriving, people thought it was on its back legs. The final one is reindustrialization, what some people call the fourth Industrial Revolution, which is the next big thing coming out of this.

    I think Marc Andreessen’s piece was terrific. You think about the tech sector, it’s probably more important now to the economy than the auto sector, which has been driving this place for 100 years. We don’t have a really strong voice at the table here. He’s exactly right. We shouldn’t just repair roads and fix bridges, we have to build the future. I think what he’s getting at fundamentally is if we’re going to do this reindustrialization of America and prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it’s going to be more AI, more robotics, taking a lot of things like 3D printing, additive manufacturing it’s sometimes called, and putting it in scale operation in this country. Tech has a real part to play in that but this will pervade the whole country.

    The VC Model Is The Core Driver Of Growth In This Economy

    The VC model is the core driver of growth in this economy. If you go back and look at the stats it’s overwhelming. If you think about what we did in VC in the 80s it was PCs, it was hardware, it was disc drives. In the 90s it was software and the internet. More recently, it’s all kinds of things that is spread very broadly across the economy but basically is software-driven, There’s no problem with the VC industry rotating itself back toward industrial things and toward real things and away from software. In fact, it’s exactly the right industry to be agile and move very quickly to finance this next wave of innovation. 

    It’s just not here yet. But if this truly is the Fourth Industrial Revolution it’ll be of the scale of the past three. I think the boom in the venture world, let’s say from 2024 to 2032 or some time frame like that, will be bigger than we’ve seen in the last decade and probably rival what we saw in the 90s. What we see is an acceleration of current trends. So Zoom may be overvalued but the direction of remote collaboration tools, no question. Remote learning — universities may have a total change into more teaching online versus people going to the universities themselves. I can go down through the whole list. Look at what’s really surging and think of that as an acceleration that will continue.

    Preparing For The Reindustrialization Of America
  • Microsoft Scores Five-Year Coca-Cola Contract

    Microsoft Scores Five-Year Coca-Cola Contract

    Microsoft has announced a five-year contract with Coca-Cola to modernize and standardize the beverage company’s software.

    The contract covers Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 to provide an integrated solution, as opposed to the fragmented systems the company was using. An integration solution will also help Coca-Cola gain valuable insights from the data it collects. In particular, Dynamics 365 will apply artificial intelligence to drive insights.

    “At The Coca-Cola Company, innovation and growth are key pillars of our business,” said Barry Simpson, senior vice president and chief information and integrated services officer of The Coca-Cola Company. “This partnership with Microsoft allows us to really step change our employee experience through replacing previously disparate and fragmented systems. These platforms allow us to deliver relevant, personalized experiences as we network our organization.”

    “Coca-Cola is a pioneer and forward-thinking leader in its industry,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft. “Today, the company is taking its digital innovation a step further, leveraging Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 and Azure to better connect people and opportunities through breakthrough productivity and powerful information management that will drive continued business success over the next decade.”

    The contract is a big win for Microsoft as it continues to make headway in the cloud marketplace.

  • Without AI, Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    Without AI, Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    “How do we shorten the space between a signal that we get, say in behavioral data that we see show up either in an app or on a website, and then churn through all of the possibilities of what we could present, apply algorithms to determine what is the next best offer and next best experience?” asks Adam Justis, Director of Marketing at Adobe Experience Cloud. “Then how do we present that in a way that actually feels if not real-time pretty close to it? That would not be possible without artificial intelligence.”

    Adam Justis, Director of Marketing at Adobe Experience Cloud, discusses how AI and machine learning are enabling near real-time shopping personalization in an interview with theCUBE at Adobe Imagine 2019 in Las Vegas:

    Role of AI in Offering a Personalized Shopping Experience is Core

    You definitely have the data piece and then the content piece. I would also add how the complexity of all that has certainly exceeded the capacity to manage this in a singular sort of engagement with a customer, let alone at scale millions of times a day. So the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning now is so core. It’s sort of the gearbox that’s turning at the center of the data on one hand and the content and elements, the assets, the offers, on the other that allows for ultimately the coalescing of those things and then the delivery of an experience worth having.

    That’s the component pieces that we’re seeing at play and Adobe’s motivation in going into that space. At Adobe when we announced our intent to acquire Magento, we were talking about how does Adobe facilitate or help every experience become shoppable and every moment personal? Really that was a claim we couldn’t make without the Magento piece. It is absolutely a hand in glove relationship especially as we’ve all evolved as consumers.

    Advancements in AI Are Going From the Absurd to the Very Real

    To imagine that we would be subscribing to socks or that we could one-click purchase just about anything, you need the technology that can keep pace with the expectations. That’s what it’s all about. So many of those experiences that Adobe is intent on enabling our customers to present culminate in a transaction of some sort. Magento is absolutely not only the icing on the cake but it’s also so integral. It’s becoming a fundamental or elemental part of what we’re trying to accomplish.

    That (personalized experience) is one of the things that I absolutely love about customer experience management or CXM. In a way I kind of love the absurdity of it. When you think of the scale, to say something like we’re going to make every experience shoppable and every moment personal, to imagine that that’s possible is almost absurd. But when you introduce the advancements that we’re seeing in artificial intelligence and machine learning now it’s literally going from the absurd or the realm of science fiction into very real. That’s what Adobe is looking at.

    Without AI Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible

    How can we literally take some sort of statement like we’re going to personalize experiences across the customer journey and we’re going to do it at scale and in real-time? Really, unless you’re considering how we’re going to meet the needs of the customer in the moment that they’re expressing that need then it’s really moot. It is absolutely artificial intelligence and machine learning that we’re seeing expressed now across the Adobe Experience Cloud that is making that happen in multiple ways. One of the ways would be simply by shortening that span between the latent genius that marketers are walking around in their heads and actual execution. How can we take some of the friction out of the workflows that allow them to translate their ideas into offers?

    How do we shorten the space between a signal that we get, say in behavioral data that we see show up either in an app or on a website, and then churn through all of the possibilities of what we could present, apply algorithms to determine what is the next best offer and next best experience? Then how do we present that in a way that actually feels if not real-time pretty close to it? That would not be possible without artificial intelligence. At Adobe we do that through a product called Adobe Sensei.

    Adobe: Without AI Real-Time Personalization Would Not Be Possible
  • Microsoft Scores With NBA Partnership

    Microsoft Scores With NBA Partnership

    Microsoft has announced a multi-year partnership with the NBA, beginning with the 2020-21 season.

    Microsoft’s technology has been a staple on NFL sidelines for years, but the new NBA deal represents a significant expansion into the sports world. With the new deal, the NBA will use Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to broadcast on-demand and live broadcasts.

    The partnership will also heavily utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve the customer experience. The technology will be used to help generate a “more personalized fan experience,” based on the NBA’s video archives. AI and ML will also help provide coaches and broadcasters with unique insights.

    “We are thrilled to serve as the official AI partner of the NBA,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together, we’ll bring fans closer to the game and players they love with new personalized experiences powered by Microsoft Azure.”

    “This partnership with Microsoft will help us redefine the way our fans experience NBA basketball,” said Adam Silver, NBA commissioner. “Our goal, working with Microsoft, is to create customized content that allows fans — whether they are in an NBA arena or watching from anywhere around the world — to immerse themselves in all aspects of the game and engage directly with our teams and players.”

    The partnership is a big win for Microsoft and the company’s technology will help revolutionize the experience for NBA officials and fans alike.

    Image Credit: Microsoft

  • The Disruption In Our Industry, It’s Manic, Says Ogilvy CEO

    The Disruption In Our Industry, It’s Manic, Says Ogilvy CEO

    “The pace of change, the disruption in our industry, it’s manic,” says  Ogilvy Global CEO John Seifert. “We’re all trying to get our arms around it. The hope I have for convening moments like Cannes is the clients and their partners in tech and creative communications and data start to come together and work harder as partners to design the models of the future.”

    John Seifert, Global CEO of Ogilvy, discusses how technology such as AI is disrupting the advertising industry in an interview on CNBC International on location in Cannes:

    The Disruption In Our Industry, It’s Manic

    The pace of change, the disruption in our industry, it’s manic. We’re all trying to get our arms around it. The hope I have for convening moments like Cannes is the clients and their partners in tech and creative communications and data start to come together and work harder as partners to design the models of the future. 

    Some have predicted AI will eliminate jobs or reframe jobs that require intense new levels of training. So far that is not the challenge we’ve had. It’s really about how do we think about the impact AI can make in making work and doing better work and getting insights that we can translate throughout marketing and communications. It’s additive at the moment, at least for us and for our business. I think it’s like everything else in life. These things are changing, they’re very dynamic, and how we apply and learn them in real time with clients on everyday big important challenges is going to be critical.

    Generation of People In Our Company Who Are Thirsty For the Change

    We’re just trying to get everybody very externally focused. We’ve had a couple of years in our transformation. We did a lot of change on the inside that was obviously disruptive for people, unsettling sometimes and makes you insecure. But there is a generation of people in our company now who are thirsty for the change and want to apply it. We’re at that moment of transition now where a lot of the what I call, rewiring the company, is done. Now it’s about how do we work together differently? How do we execute to a new level of ambition that our clients are asking for? Then frankly, how do we show the accountability of that work through better results?

    I’ve said to everyone in the company, in fact, I just came from talking to someone who’s reinvented a service model in Singapore for one of our largest clients, that you just have to get to the coalface of experiencing what people who are driving change are going through every day. Then frankly, my job is to just take the noise and the pain out of the process, the more that I can be serving them, making it easier for them to get what they need in the company. We’re a global company of 14,000 people. We have tremendous assets but sometimes people find that hard to navigate. My job is to make sure that they can navigate it easily, get the tools they need and feel the support that they have from me to just get on with it.

    We’ve Got To Prove That What We Do Matters

    We have to get back to revenue growth in the range of two to five percent. We’re a big company, we’re a $1.7 billion business. We’ve got to get out of the flat era and get back to sustainable growth. We’re going to do that I think fundamentally by reinventing our model to serve clients more effectively and efficiently so they want to spend more and do more things that the marketing environment right now calls for. I’m hugely optimistic about the future but we’ve got to continue to prove that what we do matters to clients and building their brands.

    The Disruption In Our Industry, It’s Manic, Says Ogilvy CEO John Seifert
  • Microsoft and BlackRock Partner to Host Aladdin on Azure

    Microsoft and BlackRock Partner to Host Aladdin on Azure

    Microsoft has announced a big win for its Azure cloud platform: a deal to host BlackRock’s Aladdin infrastructure on Azure.

    Aladdin is an “end-to-end investment management and operations platform used by institutional investors including asset managers, pension funds, insurers and corporate treasurers.” By moving the infrastructure to Azure, BlackRock hopes to bring enhanced capabilities and an improved experience to its clients.

    “As both a user and a provider of Aladdin, this decision reflects BlackRock’s ongoing commitment to continuous innovation and scalable operating solutions,” said Rob Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock. “Aladdin infrastructure deployed on Microsoft Azure’s cloud platform will provide BlackRock with enhanced capabilities to deliver the best outcomes for our Aladdin clients.”

    “By bringing Aladdin to the cloud, Microsoft will support BlackRock in further enhancing its client experience while also enabling continuous innovation in the financial services industry,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business. “Together, we will empower an ecosystem of financial services customers running their most critical workloads in the cloud.”

    The two companies are committed to working together to further sustainability through the use of big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence. The deal is a big win for Microsoft, and will likely help it move further into the financial services industry.

  • AI And Smartphone Photography

    AI And Smartphone Photography

    Smartphone cameras have changed over the last several years, and these days you can take masterpiece photos with very little effort. But that’s not because everyone has suddenly had photography training – instead, it’s because of the technology that makes your smartphone camera work.

    Smartphone cameras have been becoming more advanced, utilizing AI to push the envelope, and developing interest from even professional photographers. Most people take camera quality into account when buying a new smartphone, and have a wide range of standards, from pixel count to lense size. However, what most don’t realize is that hardware is half of the story. Artificial Intelligence is a large determiner in how great your pics come out on a smartphone. AI algorithms can identify setting, determine exposure, brightness, and white balance, and with face recognition, can blur the background and focus on the subject of the photo. 

    With great algorithms, smartphones can compensate for any hardware that couldn’t be jammed into your pocket. High Dynamic Range can combine 3 separate photos to find the greatest lighting possible, enabling amazing shots in less than stellar settings, such as very bright or dim locations. Top Shot records a 3-second video and picks what it decides is the best pic also giving the photographer a selection of alternates.

    The Google Pixel goes one step further, with its new feature, which includes augmented video techniques similar to those above. HDR+ again takes a cluster of shots, but instead of only maximizing lighting, it focuses on attaining vibrant color and reducing noise. Night Sight utilizes motion detection and color correction to get better pics in low-level lighting.

    Not only are stock smartphone cameras relatively high in quality, but there are a plethora of developer apps that specialize for any occasion. Looking to take a selfie? Try Cymera Camera, toting the same features of the native camera, adds fun tools for retouching, stickers, and cool light effects to make any selfie pop. Feeling nostalgic? Take a look at VSCO, which recreates the vintage film look, imitating effects reminiscent of Kodak or Fuji. Or go pro, with Moment Pro, which supports RAW images files and videos in addition to access to full manual controls.

    Most smartphones can take pictures in higher resolution than 35mm film, and with good editing, you can leave the clunky camera at home in your closet. Old limitations are vanishing with new editing capabilities varying from as interesting as turning a landscape into a Van Gogh masterpiece, to dramatic alterations like removing the background completely in favor of a new one. With apps like Prisma, FaceApp, and Adobe Photoshop Camera, you can greatly enhance and manipulate your already awesome photos. Edit your videos on the fly, or let the AI do it for you using apps such as Trash, Switcher, and FilmoraGo.

    Is hardware limitation still bogging you down? It’s time for an upgrade, but don’t toss the phone just yet. Lighting rings and add-on lenses can improve photo quality and versatility. A gimbal stabilizer eliminates shake and allows smooth motion while filming, while a new mic to plug into the headphone jack can bring your videos to the next level. 

    Find out how new AI and new tech is bridging the gap between amateur and pro photography in your smartphone here.

    AI And Smartphone Photography

    This story originally appeared on Kivo Daily