Amnon Shashua, CEO of Intel's Israel-based Mobileye, said the strategy of having individual companies each focusing on one component, like safety, sensors or maps, is not sustainable because it's an "end-to-end system" that cannot be broken down.

In previous years the number of new chatbot launches easily outstripped the number of bots that were given new skills. In 2020, as the post-COVID return to work starts, that trend appears to be changing as businesses empower their existing bots with new features. A regular scan of the news headlines in the many years we have been covering chatbots would result in a neat cache of new bot launches to cover. From Asian and Indian banks to western airlines and a growing number of B2B bots, the trend seemed pretty strong. Part of our interest was in following these bots along, to see how many would be retired early on, perhaps due to faulty design or lack of interest.

Spot, the robot dog, is equipped with cameras and sensors to help it estimate the number of visitors and reduce the number of park patrons amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "For your own safety and for those around you, please stand at least one metre apart. Thank you," Spot says as it patrols Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park in Singapore as part of a two-week trial. The government says its cameras will not be able to track specific individuals and no personal data will be collected. Singapore, an island nation of approximately 5.7 million people, is grappling with one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases in Asia. It is also using a fleet of 30 drones to monitor crowd levels in public parks, which have remained open during a lockdown that began in early April.

Bicycling in a hilly, busy city like San Francisco provides a cognitive as well as a physical workout. I survive in traffic by flexing not only my quadriceps but my theory of mind, the capacity to imagine the thoughts and intentions of others: Will the guy riding a Bird scooter swerve to avoid that pothole? Will the UPS driver try to run that yellow light? Last year, when General Motors stepped up testing of its Cruise autonomous vehicles, I began to encounter the sporty white hatchbacks with rooftop sensors once or more each day. At first the cars were overcautious and twitchy, earning angry honks from human drivers for unnecessary braking and hesitant turns.

The coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the globe with unprecedented speed and lethality, killing hundreds of thousands of people and forcing countries' entire populations to self-quarantine. The virus technically termed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is believed to be zoonotic, but its origin is still in doubt. A new paper reports the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to solve the puzzle of the virus's origin. The paper was published on the preprint server bioRxiv* in May 2020. AI has been widely employed during the pandemic, with its uses ranging from rapid diagnostics to contact tracing to drug simulation.

In the first application for Hikrobot in the UK, global fashion brand, Superdry, is leveraging the flexibility of intelligent mini-robot carriers to transform order picking and put-away at its UK hub – just part of a phased roll-out of goods-to-person robotics that will boost productivity across its international network of multi-channel fulfilment centres. Superdry is an iconic, global fashion brand operating through 768 store locations in 65 countries. Since its foundation in Cheltenham in 1985, the business has experienced phenomenal growth and in 2019 reported revenue of £871 million – a success story built on a reputation for providing distinctive, high-quality products that fuse vintage Americana and Japanese inspired graphics with a British style. As an omni-channel retailer competing in the fast-moving fashion sector, maintaining high product availability, efficient fulfilment and the rapid processing of returns is essential for ensuring the best possible customer experience across multiple channels – retail, wholesale and ecommerce. Critically, all of these competitive differentiators depend upon the fast, accurate and efficient picking of products from across Superdry's extensive range of over 60,000 SKUs, held at the company's three regional distribution centres in the UK, Europe and USA.

Satyamoy is a seasoned analytics professional and a hands-on leader. He has 18 years of global experience with a deep focus on Banking and Financial Services industry. He has spent significant part of his career in variety of roles in companies such as Citigroup, and GE, enabling business impact through the application of analytics and data science. In his current role, Satyamoy leads the Client Solutions and Product Strategy at Analyttica Datalab Inc., a fast growing analytics start-up headquartered in Delaware, US with offices in Wilmington, Bangalore, and Pune. He has been undertaking a leadership role in the journey of build through growth of the organization.

Speech analytics technologies are used to extract information at customer contact points across various channels such as voice, chat, email, social channels, and surveys. Across the world, voice and phone interaction is the most common mode of communication used by consumers. Therefore, speech analytics is used in Voice User Interface (VUI) to derive insights at different contact points. In current times, organizations across various industry sectors are undertaking programs for transcripting and analyzing customer and organizational media. This is mainly to take logical decisions for customer and business management with the help of speech and text intelligence.

In recent years, academicians and corporate professionals have requested greater transparency in the inner workings of artificial intelligence (AI) models, and for many good reasons. In a Harvard Business Review post, Andrew Burt, Immuta's chief legal officer, points out that transparency can help mitigate certain problems, such as fairness, discrimination and trust, in a scenario in which, for example, the new Apple's credit card has been accused of sexist loan models, while Amazon scrapped an AI tool to hire after discovering it discriminated against women. At the same time, it is becoming clear that the disclosure of AI information poses its own risks: greater disclosure of information can make AI more vulnerable to attack, while the more information is reported, the more companies can be susceptible to lawsuits or regulatory actions. "Let's call it the AI transparency paradox: while generating more information about AI could bring real benefits, it could also create new risks. To navigate this paradox, organizations will need to think carefully about how they handle AI risks, the information they generate about these risks, and how that information is shared and protected, "says Burt.

We take a closer look into Booz Allen-Hamilton's massive artificial intelligence contract with the Pentagon and what it entails for both parties. Booz Allen-Hamilton is a global firm of approximately 26,300 diverse, passionate, and exceptional people driven to excel, do right, and realize positive change in everything that they do. They bring bold thinking and a desire to be the best in consulting, analytics, digital solutions, engineering, and cyber, and with industries ranging from defence to health to energy to international development. They celebrate and value diversity in all its forms; it's something that they truly value as a multicultural community of problem solvers. They believe in corporate and individual citizenship that make communities better places for all.