Shares of iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) and C3.ai (NYSE:AI) have taken a beating in 2021, falling 43% and 72%, respectively, off their all-time highs. While the two experienced different causes for these drops, they don't play major roles in the long-term thesis for either company. After iRobot was hit with unexpected tariffs this year and C3.ai lost its IPO hype, both stocks have fallen drastically. But those factors might disappear in 2022, meaning that these two companies have a bright future. When you think of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, iRobot might not be the first company that comes to mind, but it has the potential to have a strong AI foundation.

China's biggest-listed companies Tencent and Alibaba are expected to report a fall in profits and slowing revenue growth in the July-September quarter, hurt by the year-long regulatory crackdown that has upended its technology industry. Beijing has reasserted control over its once-freewheeling internet sector, punishing well-known names for engaging in what were previously considered regular market practices and drafting new rules to change how they compete and engage users. "We believe the financial impact of regulatory headwinds in China will be reflected in (third quarter) earnings and (fourth quarter) guidance," KGI Asia analysts said in a note last month. Tencent Holdings Ltd – the country's largest firm by market value and its first Big Tech name to report earnings on Wednesday – is expected to post a 12 percent fall in quarterly profit, its first drop in two years, according to Refinitiv data. The gaming giant's revenue is expected to rise 16.4 percent, the slowest pace since the first quarter of 2019, after the government imposed new limits on the amount of time minors can spend playing video games.

In both the logistics and transportation sectors, artificial intelligence is implemented in a wide variety of ways. For instance, it makes it possible for customers to track the courier in real-time and such services are provided by most of the courier companies like ePacket. In addition to that, AI is also used to analyze the global shipping conditions like natural disasters that may hit the shipping route and other time-sensitive elements. In addition to that, companies like FedEx, Amazon and Wing Aviation LLC. are experimenting with drone delivery pilots to reduce the dependence on manual workers and to speed up the process. AI can further be used in the logistics sector for planning and scheduling, sales and marketing, warehouse management, customer care and shipping and delivery.

Many logistics and transportation companies are using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide satisfactory services to …

In a new study, researchers merged artificial intelligence with targeted electrical brain stimulation to show that it is possible to improve specific human brain functions related to self-control and mental flexibility. The findings come from a human study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston among 12 patients undergoing brain surgery for epilepsy--a procedure that places hundreds of tiny electrodes throughout the brain to record its activity and identify where seizures originate. The study is the first to show that a specific human mental function linked to mental illness can be reliably enhanced using precisely targeted electrical stimulation and that there are specific sub-parts of the internal capsule brain structure that are particularly effective for cognitive enhancement. Lastly, they show that a closed-loop algorithm used as a controller was twice as effective as stimulating at random times. This work is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering in the article, "Closed-loop enhancement and neural decoding of cognitive control in humans."

Enterprise deployment of AI and machine learning (ML) for cash flow forecasting is expected to increase 450% over the next two years, according to the recently released 2021 Cash Forecasting & Visibility Survey from GTreasury and Strategic Treasurer. The survey of nearly 250 enterprises across industries highlights a growing appetite for AI/ML modernization among finance and treasury teams seeking more accurate and more immediate cash flow forecasts. To sharpen forecasting capabilities (which are critical for determining business direction and priorities), today's enterprises are embracing new technology strategies and refining methods to introduce greater automation and efficiency. While just 6% of respondents currently use AI/ML technology to predict and understand their cash forecasting, enterprises' reported plans indicate that, within two years, that number will reach 27%. Respondents also indicate a similarly bright trajectory for regression analysis: 12% use it currently, but projected usage will grow to 29% in two years, and 43% use or expect to use it at some point in the future.

Products developed to manage artificial intelligence data are still largely fragmented, solving one problem at a time for developers, but not the entire life cycle. Enter Sama, a company providing high-quality training data that powers AI technology applications. CEO Wendy Gonzalez said the company is developing the first end-to-end AI tool for training data through machine learning. To do this, the company secured an oversubscribed $70 million in Series B financing led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), with participation from First Ascent Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Vistara Growth and all existing investors. The new capital infusion comes two years after the company raised $14.8 million in a Series A round.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) operate in different sectors, but both tech companies are profiting from the secular expansion of the artificial intelligence (AI) market. Nvidia's GPUs are often associated with video games, but a growing number of data centers are installing its high-end GPUs to process AI tasks. Palantir's data mining platforms accumulate and process data from disparate sources to help government agencies and big companies make AI-driven decisions. Both companies have generated impressive gains over the past 12 months. Nvidia's stock more than doubled as it continued to sell more gaming and data center GPUs. Palantir's stock soared about 160% as it dazzled investors with its robust revenue growth rates and optimistic long-term targets.

McDonald's is partnering with IBM to implement artificial intelligence tech to take orders at its drive-thru lanes. "In my mind, IBM is the ideal partner for McDonald's given their expertise in building AI-powered customer care solutions and voice recognition," McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said during a Wednesday earnings call, as quoted by CNBC. It's arguably the last thing we need: the kind of frustration we get from trying to communicate with AI-powered software -- cough, Siri -- could make anybody rip their hair out the next time they hit up a fast food joint. And that's not to mention losing more human jobs to automated systems, a worrying trend that's already well underway. In 2019, the restaurant chain bought a tech startup called Apprente and renamed it McD Tech Labs.

The Morning Ledger provides daily news and insights on corporate finance from the CFO Journal team. Private-equity firm Permira and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board in 2015 took the company private in a transaction valued at $5.3 billion after roughly 15 years as a public company. The company has since moved its on-premises products to a cloud-based platform and built a subscription business. Permira and CPPIB will control about 85% of the company after its IPO. Informatica, which lists drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., consumer-goods giant Unilever PLC and supermarket chain Kroger Co. among its customers, helps companies connect and manage their data across the cloud and on-premise systems, allowing organizations to better analyze the data they collect.