Our editor, Nathan Gore, spoke to Simon Bussy, Domain Director of Altus, about the benefits of AI/ML within the Wealth Management sector. What would be your brief outline of the benefits that AI/ML can bring to the Wealth Management sector? The successful firms will be those that demonstrate a willingness to collaborate with technology and recognise that AI – and in particular, machine learning – can help people make better, faster, cheaper decisions. In a world of smart-connectivity, AI is the key to harnessing the power of data, and to a long and sustainable future. While currently AI is being used for very specific wealth management tasks – hedge fund management, robotic stock pickers, 'robo' investment algorithms, client service chatbots, document analysis, RegTech support – increasingly AI will be used to augment business strategy and planning, using the power of data analytics and simulations to help provide answers to critical business questions.

The kindergarten students who entered the school gate for the first time in 2017 will be graduating by 2030. These students and the young people to finish school over the next two decades will be the workers of 2040. Developments in AI are one of a number of interrelated --megatrends-- changing the nature of the labour markets across the world. The profound changes ahead demand an education approach that will provide young people with enduring capabilities and skills to harness the opportunities of technological change. There is significant uncertainty about the full impact of artificial intelligence and automation on employment but the effects are already starting to be felt.

We reached out to expert analyst Sanj Bhayro, SVP EMEA Commercial Sales at Salesforce, to highlight the urgent need for SMEs to be primed for automation and build a future-proof IT infrastructure. Like me, you may have recently read that fintech provider iZettle has received €30 million in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to increase its use of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). This part of the EIB's strategy, one element of its Investment Plan for Europe, aims to provide funding to start-ups and SMEs that will help boost the region's tech economy. I'm particularly excited to see how this funding can help small businesses innovate and grow rapidly. Over the years I've worked with hundreds of small companies across Europe and, more often than not, I find they make tech investment decisions based on what they need right now, rather than what they will need in the future.

As the sandbox of artificial intelligence expands, Asian countries are increasing their stake in AI development. "Companies in Asia can be a bit cautious when it comes to new technology. But once they understand it, they may embrace it faster than counterparts in the U.S or Europe," said Maximilian Vollmar, Bloomberg News Market Specialist. Financial institutions in particular are looking to machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence that focuses on teaching computer systems to "learn" independently with data, as a way to automate processes and increase efficiency. Of the countries in Asia who are diving into the field, South Korea has made some high-profile strides in recent years.

In 1968, America and the former Soviet Union were locked in a space race to land a man on the moon. It was during this time of Cold War tension and rivalry that 2001: A Space Odyssey come out on cinema screens and dazzled filmgoers. Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan went to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington to see an exhibition that honours the movie.

Technology is the key point for the future of all mankind. Every development brings new opportunities, opens new paths and solves already existent problems. But if we are to mention the three more disruptive ones, which are likely to change the way the world works in the years to come, we definitely need to pick the likes of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Blockchain -and crypto-currencies for instance-. At least, that is how they think at The Futurama Blockchain Innovators Summit, an event that will take place in Dubai from May, 3 – 6, and where these three technologies will be discussed and shared by the most representative experts on these categories. The summit will highlight "the fruits of the three most revolutionary technologies of the 21st century at once: blockchain, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. They'll showcase futuristic solutions, from the new generations tools for managing your personal health data, to a billion dollar trading algorithm that represents the most advanced artificial general intelligence that can reason and theorize."

And because of this fact, we're screwed. Due to advances in artificial intelligence, it's now possible to convincingly map anyone's face onto the body of another person in a video. As Vox's Aja Romano has explained, this technique is becoming more common in pornography: An actress's head can be mapped onto a porn actress's body. These "deepfakes" can be generated with free software, and they're different from the photoshopping of the past. This is live action -- and uncannily real. On Tuesday, BuzzFeed published a demonstration featuring the actor and director Jordan Peele.

The stressful task of assembling flat-pack furniture looks set to become a thing of the past following the unveiling this week of a robot that can do it for you. Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, have created an android featuring a 3D camera and "industrial robot arms" with grippers that is capable of assembling furniture without human help, The Guardian reports. Tasked with constructing Ikea's £18 Stefan chair, two robots working together successfully assembled the chair in just nine minutes - faster than it would take most humans, the newspaper says. However, the scientists had previous spent around 11 minutes programming the robots to perform the assembly process. The team hope that, by integrating more artificial intelligence (AI) into the robots, they will one day be able to teach themselves how to build pieces of furniture by studying the instruction manual, looking at a picture of the finished item, or through verbal commands, the newspaper reports. Although robots have been used in car assembly lines for decades, more intricate tasks - such as building Ikea furniture - poses a far great challenge for droids, reports the Daily Mail.

Image provided by Nearmap Australia. The dust is finally settling after another stellar Locate conference, and four phenomena revealed themselves as ubiquitous, rapidly developing and happening right now. Locate co-located with Geosmart Asia for 2018 to provide a bustling, inspiring three days of presentations, networking, and socialising for delegates at the Adelaide Convention Centre. Whilst being physically impossible to attend all the promising sessions across the seven concurrent tracks presented in the event's main program, certain developments, trends and technologies revealed themselves as ubiquitous over the course of the conference. Below we summarise some of the key take-aways and trends of this year's Locate -- ideas and developments that wove themselves through a myriad of applications, technologies and disciplines, and will continue to make their presence felt in the years to come.

Jeremy Achin, DataRobot CEO, co-founder, and architect of automated machine learning, kicked off the conference with his keynote address. He delivered a primer on AI as a tool for finding business opportunity in data and outlined the history of DataRobot from its humble beginnings in 2012 in a co-founder's kitchen in Connecticut, U.S. to a global company five years later. He closed out by presenting a vision for the future of the technology. Takuya Kudo, Accenture Applied Intelligence Unit, delivered a keynote on the surging demand for data science and the improving performance accuracy in automated machine learning. Kaoru Kawamoto, Head of Business Analysis for Osaka Gas, presented the final keynote.