QuickBooks is accessible from any web browser or through the mobile app. And it only takes about five minutes to get up and running. Intuit is infusing its QuickBooks platform with artificial intelligence aimed at guiding small businesses through projecting cash flow, tracking expenses and mileage, and performance ratios. Unveiled at Intuit's QuickBooks Connect conference, the company outlined an approach that rhymes with how it has automated tax preparation. QuickBooks is aiming to enable small business owners and self-employed workers to use AI to automate back-office work, ease commerce, and introduce performance metrics.

Cloud data storage and management platform SwiftStack announced Thursday that it had agreed to be acquired by graphics processing and artificial intelligence (AI) specialist NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA). SwiftStack offers cloud storage capabilities that are already deeply embedded with NVIDIA's DGX server and supercomputer, which are specifically built to accelerate AI applications, helping to support large-scale AI and machine learning deployments. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but in three previous funding rounds, SwiftStack had raised $23.6 million from the likes of Mayfield Fund, OpenView Venture Partners, Storm Ventures, and UMC Capital. The deal is expected to close in the coming weeks. The company joined NVIDIA's partner network in mid-2019 as a solution provider for AI and machine learning.

With the rise of zero-dollar commissions at custodians and low cost robo-advisors, the financial industry--and Financial Advisors--are at a competitive disadvantage to artificial intelligence. By 2030, an estimated 80% of heritage financial services companies will go out of business, struggle for relevance, fail to use technology to change their business model, or become commoditized. Real Intelligence LLC is warning Financial Planners of this potential outcome plagued by technology enhancements, like robo-advisors. Real Intelligence, however, is executing a real-time solution that provides a patented dynamic mapping system in conjunction with human effort. "Thirty percent of advisors will exit the business in three to five years," predicts Jeff Mount, president of Real Intelligence.

Nvidia today announced that it has acquired SwiftStack, a software-centric data storage and management platform that supports public cloud, on-premises and edge deployments. The company's recent launches focused on improving its support for AI, high-performance computing and accelerated computing workloads, which is surely what Nvidia is most interested in here. "Building AI supercomputers is exciting to the entire SwiftStack team," says the company's co-founder and CPO Joe Arnold in today's announcement. "We couldn't be more thrilled to work with the talented folks at NVIDIA and look forward to contributing to its world-leading accelerated computing solutions." The two companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition, but SwiftStack had previously raised about $23.6 million in Series A and B rounds led by Mayfield Fund and OpenView Venture Partners.

Some industry experts argue that machine learning (ML) will reverse an increasing trend toward passive investment funds. But although ML offers new tools that could help active investors outperform the indexes, it is unclear whether it will deliver a sustainable business model for active asset managers. Let's start with the positives A form of artificial intelligence, ML enables powerful algorithms to analyze large data sets in order make predictions against defined goals. Instead of precisely following instructions coded by humans, these algorithms self-adjust through a process of trial and error to produce increasingly more accurate prescriptions as more data comes in. ML is particularly adaptable to securities investing because the insights it garners can be acted on quickly and efficiently.

Two of the AI chip industry's most promising startups for enterprise computing, Graphcore and SambaNova, have raised additional funding this week. Each has its own approach to AI hardware. Both are competing to supply silicon for AI workloads in data centers. Both also have unicorn status -- that is, they are private companies valued at more than $1 billion. Graphcore Round D2 Graphcore, based in Bristol, UK, has raised $150 million in a D2 round in a bid to secure its position as a leading pure-play AI processor company. The company's previous funding round, series D, was completed at the end of 2018 and raised $200 million.

How Artificial Intelligence and Automation may reshape supply chain roles as we know them? Technological advancements throughout time have caused periods of huge change.

Graphcore Ltd., the British semiconductor firm whose chips are used to run artificial intelligence programs, has raised $150 million, bringing its valuation to $1.95 billion. The company now has $300 million in cash, which it will use to invest in research and development and global expansion, Bristol, England-based Graphcore said in a statement on Tuesday. After it raised $200 million in 2018, Graphcore was approached by additional investors who wanted to put money into the company, Chief Executive Officer Nigel Toon said in an interview. While the company has no immediate plans for an initial public offering, several of its investors, such as Baillie Gifford, have experience investing in publicly traded technology companies and are the types of shareholders the company would try to target if it were to go public at some point in the future, Toon said. "Having this additional capital on hand allows us to accelerate our investment and allows us to be in a position to support the really large customers who we're building business with," Toon said.

They beat us at chess and trivia, supplant jobs by the thousands, and are about to be let loose on highways and roads as chauffeurs and couriers. Now, fresh signs of robot supremacy are emerging on Wall Street in the form of machine stock analysts that make more profitable investment choices than humans. At least, that's the upshot of one of the first studies of the subject, whose preliminary results were released in January. Buy recommendations peddled by robo-analysts, which supposedly mimic what traditional equity research departments do but faster and at lower costs, outperform their flesh-and-blood counterparts over the long run, according to Indiana University professors. "Using this type of technology to make investment recommendations or to conduct investment analyses is going to become increasingly important," Kenneth Merkley, an associate professor of accounting and one of the authors, said by phone.

Adesto Technologies Corporation IOTS fourth-quarter 2019 results are expected to benefit from strong demand for the company's IOT related offerings. For the quarter, the company expects revenues in the range of $32-$35 million. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is currently pegged at $33.6 million, indicating growth of 19.5% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus mark for fourth-quarter earnings has been steady at 4 cents over the past 30 days. The company had reported loss of 4 cents in the year-ago reported quarter.