The work environment is changing. Today, we're working in multiple locations, collaborating with other companies and partnering with our customers to define new products and services. Digital transformation also requires more than just technology transition. In many cases, competitive advantage will come down to creating the right skills, mindset and behavior within an organization. Human capital is the least-optimized, yet most valuable asset for a company's digital transformation efforts.

Sift Science, a San Francisco company that builds software to fight fraud online and recently opened a Seattle office, has raised a massive $53 million funding round. The round is led by New York equity firm Stripes Group and investors include heavily funded Seattle startup Remitly. The investment doubles Sift's lifetime funding to $107 million. Some big-name customers like Airbnb, Zillow, and OpenTable, use Sift Science to identify bad actors by flagging risky or abusive behaviors before they commit fraud. The software helps e-commerce companies and other online brands reduce chargebacks, fraudulent transactions, and account abuse.

The robots are killing Tesla. In a rare win for humans over robots in the battle for labor efficiency, Wall Street analysts have laid down a compelling argument that over-automation is to blame for problems at the billionaire Elon Musk's electric-car company. That is to say, the very innovation and competitive advantage that Musk says he's bringing to the car industry -- his nearly fully automated plant in Fremont, California -- is the reason Tesla is unable to scale quickly. According to the Bernstein analysts Max Warburton and Toni Sacconaghi, it's the robots that can't pump out Tesla's highly anticipated Model 3s fast enough. The whole process is too ambitious, risky, and complicated.

Founded by Hollywood film composers Drew Silverstein, Sam Estes, and Michael Hobe, Amper Music is for anyone around the world who uses, consumes or creates music. Amper is especially appealing to content creators and developers. Using Amper, content creators can simplify their workflow and avoid the time, budgetary, and licensing frustrations of stock music. The music created with Amper receives a global, royalty-free, and perpetual license, eliminating the many legal and financial hurdles of traditional music licensing. Users can select a mood, genre and track duration, then customize the track with a multitude of easy-to-use editing functionality.

Today, Agility Robotics is announcing US $8 million in Series A funding "to accelerate product, technology, and business development." Leading the round is Playground Global, founded by Android co-creator and ex-Google Robotics head Andy Rubin, and also joining in is Sony Innovation Fund. We don't write about funding rounds all that often, but this could be the first robotics company to get such a significant amount of VC funding to develop a realistic commercial bipedal robot. There are certainly other well-funded companies working on bipeds, including Boston Dynamics and Schaft. But while it's not that clear what commercial applications these companies are targeting, Agility Robotics is very specifically and deliberately working on a legged robot that can make deliveries.

Artificial intelligence company twoXAR--a specialist in separating signals from noise in data-rich drug discovery projects--has raised $10 million in a first-round financing led by SoftBank Ventures. Co-founder and CEO Andrew Radin says the proceeds will be used to bring forward preclinical drug candidates including candidates for diabetes, liver cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, build the pipeline with new partnering deals and spinouts, and add to its headcount. The company's business model is to use its AI technology to identify promising drug candidates, validate them through preclinical studies and then work with partners to bring them into the clinic. The Palo Alto, California-based company--which was the first investment for Silicon Valley entrepreneur Andreessen Horowitz's $200 million biotech fund in 2015--already has some collaborations under its belt. In 2016, it signed deals with the Universities of Chicago and Stanford for drug discovery programs in atherosclerosis and liver disease, respectively, as well as Mount Sinai Medical in the area of diabetic neuropathy.

Bob, CFO of ABC Inc is about to get on an earnings call after just reporting a 20% miss on earnings due to slower revenue growth than forecasted. Company ABC's stock price is plummeting, down 25% in extended hour trading. The board is furious and investors demand answers on the discrepancies. Inaccurate revenue forecast remains one of the biggest risks for CFOs. In a recent study, more than 50% of companies feel their pipeline forecast is only about 50% accurate.

The Global Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture (AIA) Market is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of 24.3% during the forecast period. The factors driving the growth of the global AIA market are rising adoption of information management systems (IMS), automated irrigation, increasing crop productivity by implementing deep learning techniques, and increasing global population. Furthermore, growing trend of precision farming and increasing adoption of smart sensors are also fueling the demand of the global AIA market. Replacement of human labor is also expected to overcome by AIA, to minimize scarcity of physical labor. However, the high cost of collecting data of agricultural land is a major restraint of the AIA market growth.

NEW YORK, March 12, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture (AIA) Market is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of 24.3% during the forecast period. The factors driving the growth of the global AIA market are rising adoption of information management systems (IMS), automated irrigation, increasing crop productivity by implementing deep learning techniques, and increasing global population. Furthermore, growing trend of precision farming and increasing adoption of smart sensors are also fueling the demand of the global AIA market. Replacement of human labor is also expected to overcome by AIA, to minimize scarcity of physical labor. However, the high cost of collecting data of agricultural land is a major restraint of the AIA market growth.

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming an integral part of every tech company's strategy, so it's no surprise that big firms are ramping up their acquisition of AI startups. M&A activity has already seen a fivefold increase in the number of AI startup acquisitions -- from 22 in 2013 to 115 in 2017. While the race is far from over, Google and Apple have acquired the most AI startups since 2012. With close to 14 acquisitions, Google is currently leading the charge to buy AI startups. The company's most recent acquisition involves the conversational commerce platform Banter, which helps businesses connect with their customers over popular messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and Snapchat.