"If delivered, this impact would compare well with that of other general-purpose technologies through history," notes McKinsey. "Consider, for instance, that the introduction of steam engines during the 1800s boosted labor productivity by an estimated 0.3 percent a year, the impact from robots during the 1990s around 0.4 percent, and the spread of IT during the 2000s 0.6 percent." The McKinsey report is based on simulation models of the impact of AI at the country, sector, company and worker levels. It looked at their adoption of five broad categories of AI technologies: computer vision; natural language; virtual assistants, robotic process automation, and advanced machine learning. Data sources included survey data from approximately 3,000 firms in 14 different sectors and economic data from a number of organizations including the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.

Google Cloud AI's Jia Li has left her position as head of research and development, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email. Additional comment or details were not provided. Prior to joining Google in 2016, Li was head of research at Snap Inc., and before that led the visual computing and learning group at Yahoo Labs, according to her LinkedIn profile. During her time with the company, a number of AI services were made available through Google Cloud, including AutoML for automating the creation of AI models. She also acted as head of an AI center based in Beijing that Google opened in December 2017.

But in some work environments, like medicine, mistakes can be deadly. That's why more and more medical personnel are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help reduce the rate of error. Although, many experienced doctors are skeptical about using AI in medicine, researchers around the globe are working on new ways to apply it. The options are diverse -- and in some cases rather peculiar. The AI technology is a lot more precise than the human nose in analyzing a person's breath Human breath contains numerous chemicals that can be helpful in the diagnosis of different diseases.

Artificial intelligence is "a big help, not a hindrance," according to a Salesforce executive. "AI is not gonna replace people," Peter Schwartz, senior vice president of strategic planning at Salesforce, told CNBC on Tuesday at the Singapore FinTech Festival. On the flip side, Schwartz added: "It's going to make people far more capable." Instead of thinking about the "most mundane things," Schwartz said AI would allow people to "focus" on issues such as creativity and interpersonal skills. Schwartz's comments on the impact of AI were in line with a report from the World Economic Forum in September, which said developments in automation technologies and artificial intelligence could result in 58 million net new jobs being created by 2022.

Kai-Fu Lee is the chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and president of the company's Artificial Intelligence Institute. Sinovation Ventures is a leading venture capital firm, managing US$1.7 billion dual currency investment funds, that is focusing on developing the next generation of Chinese high-tech companies. Kai-Fu has been in artificial intelligence research, development, and investment for more than 30 years. Previously, he was the president of Google China and held executive positions at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple.

During the Web Summit, we interviewed the CEO and the Chief Architect of Ascent Robotics, a Tokyo-based Robotics / AI startup developing intelligent autonomous vehicles and next-generation industrial robotics solutions. Ascent was founded in Tokyo in 2016 and work with some of the most interesting companies in the world.

Uber has accrued roughly $2.5 billion in losses this year, not including the sale of its unprofitable businesses in southeast Asia and Russia. Last year, Uber lost about $4.5 billion. In preparation for the company's planned IPO, Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi has been working to shore up Uber's finances, including closing or selling unprofitable units and paring expenses. Bankers hoping to help Uber with its plan to go public have valued the company on the public markets at as much as $120 billion, more than double its valuation from a recent funding round, The Wall Street Journal reported in October. That valuation is more than General Motors Co .

The ¥300,000 ($2,650) masks, made of resin and plastic by five employees at REAL-f Co., attempt to accurately duplicate an individual's face down to fine wrinkles and skin texture. Company founder Osamu Kitagawa came up with the idea while working at a printing machine manufacturer. But it took him two years of experimentation before he found a way to use three-dimensional facial data from high-quality photographs to make the masks, and started selling them in 2011. The company, based in Shiga Prefecture, receives about 100 orders every year from entertainment, automobile, technology and security companies, mainly in Japan. For example, a Japanese car company ordered a mask of a sleeping face to improve its facial recognition technology to detect if a driver had dozed off, Kitagawa said.

As smartphone ownership continues to grow in the U.S. and around the world, consumers are pivoting from shopping on desktop computers to their phones. M-commerce is predicted to overtake desktop purchases globally by 2023, according to Worldpay's 2018 Global Payments Report1. The report found that m-commerce currently accounts for 38 percent of the more than $1.3 trillion in global eCommerce sales. M-commerce is set to grow a staggering 19 percent during the next five years. In 2018, the largest markets in the world for m-commerce are China ($0.75 trillion), U.S. ($0.21 trillion), UK ($63.8 billion), Japan ($34.5 billion) and South Korea ($28.8 billion).

According to a recent Indian jobs study, data science is one of the topmost and fastest growing fields in India and its relevance is increasing in almost every sector. Reports from NASSCOM suggests that India's data industry would reach $16 billion by 2025 from the present level of $2 billion. At the core of it, data science is the science of examining raw data and applying statistical techniques for the purpose of drawing business related conclusions and predicting business outcomes. In every organization, there are opportunities to implement data science and transform the way business is carried out. Leading analysts like Gartner and Forrester have quoted 2018 as a milestone year for organizations, with over 70% of them expected to leverage data science for Business Optimization.