Apple workers have stopped listening to Siri queries worldwide, the company said this week. Apple plans to bring back human reviews of Siri voice recordings at some unspecified date, but the company said it will only review them when customers specifically opt in to the practice. Separately, Google today confirmed that it recently "paused" human reviews of Google Assistant queries worldwide. Apple's decision to stop having humans listen to Siri queries follows a report last week that contractors who review the recordings for accuracy heard private discussions and even sexual encounters. Apple calls the human reviews of Siri recordings "grading."

Big and small businesses are using free chatbot platforms to engage customers in new and superior ways. In the beginning, businesses used chatbots for customer support only. Since then, Chatbots have moved on to other areas and industries. Lately, there is much interest in using them in self-service applications. Chatbots are excellent to give your customers the capability of getting things done.

Reno, NV, July 30, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions, Inc., (AITX:OTCPK) is pleased to announce that Robotic Assistance Devices, Inc., (RAD) its wholly owned subsidiary, has received a new purchase order and subsequently deployed three SCOT units at a new multi-billion dollar real estate client. This follows the deployment of the SCOT mentioned in the February 5, 2019 press release, which was for a San Francisco Bay area commercial real estate customer. This client has indicated they are likely to expand their RAD system quickly. "We are gaining good momentum in the real estate vertical," said Steve Reinharz, President and CEO of RAD. "This is a new commercial real estate order and the first in the Northeast of the U.S. This is a large sector that has the potential to greatly increase sales for the company in the future."

The use of virtual assistants (VAs) in the workplace is growing. By 2021, Gartner, Inc. predicts that 25 percent of digital workers will use a virtual employee assistant (VEA) on a daily basis. This will be up from less than 2 percent in 2019. The contact center was the pilot and testing ground for many adopters of VAs, but with the democratization of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of accurate and clever conversational UIs, different types of VA have arisen: virtual personal assistants (VPAs), virtual customer assistants (VCAs) and VEAs. "We expect VEAs to be used by an increasing number of organizations over the next three years," said Annette Jump, senior director at Gartner.

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "How AI Can Help CSPs to Expand Their Role in the IoT Value Chain, Support Blockchain and Increase Revenue" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Mobile communications service providers (CSPs) that only provide connectivity services for IoT address just 8-14% of value in the IoT market and competition is intensifying. CSPs will need to use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to add value to basic IoT connectivity services.

Enterprises are beginning to recognize the value associated with incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their business processes, according to a new report from Tractica. The number of proof-of-concept and pilot programs continues to grow, and larger scale commercial deployments of AI technology are being publicized by enterprise organizations around the globe. Tractica forecasts that worldwide revenue from deployments of AI software, hardware, and services will increase from $14.9 billion in 2017 to $23.6 billion in 2018, a year-over-year increase of 58%. The market intelligence firm's analysis finds that the top 10 industries for adoption of enterprise AI are as follows: "Results from early enterprise AI deployments are quite strong in terms of improving operational efficiencies, reducing expenses, and enhancing the resolution of data analytics," says principal analyst Keith Kirkpatrick. "Indeed, much of the success of AI is due to the fact that most tasks currently delegated to AI technology are data-driven and therefore easily measured or benchmarked. When AI technology is deployed, even during a small pilot program, the benefits can quickly be demonstrated and proven by looking at the performance data."

BlackBerry Cylance is pleased to announce the debut of CylanceGUARD, a comprehensive security solution that delivers continuous threat prevention across the entire enterprise and response automation powered by BlackBerry Cylance's groundbreaking artificial intelligence platform. CylanceGUARD is a 24x7 managed detection and response (MDR) offering that provides actionable intelligence to prevent and respond to threats quickly, minimizing alert fatigue while delivering the context required to streamline investigations led by world-class threat hunting and incident response experts. The solution also provides an advanced orchestration engine with custom filters to reduce false positives and alert fatigue, bolstering an organization's security posture by providing automated remediation rules to reduce the time lost to manual incident response actions. CylanceGUARD provides proactive threat hunting processes beyond simple alert management, freeing up human resources for other security initiatives and instantly maturing a customer's security program. CylanceGUARD increases overall environment visibility and simplifies complex workflows to dramatically reduce dwell time in identifying and remediating attacks and the proliferation of system intrusions.

Ernst & Young LLP (EY) announced that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded a $49 million IDIQ (indefinite delivery indefinite quantity) contract vehicle to the EY US Government & Public Sector practice for intelligent automation and artificial intelligence (IAAI) products and services. The Health and Human Services Program Support Center is managing a government-wide contract vehicle for IAAI services. The intent of the vehicle is to promote innovation in this space through funding support for rapid prototyping and proof of concepts leveraging robotic process automation, natural language processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence and blockchain. "We're honored we've been selected and are presented with the opportunity to share our IAAI capabilities to help HHS and other agencies transform their operations," said Mike Herrinton, Partner and US Government & Public Sector Leader at Ernst & Young LLP. "EY implements digital solutions with modern technologies that can help agencies unlock the potential of their data and assets, and change the way customers interact with the government."

DWS Group acquired a 3% stake in digital environmental, social and governance-scoring provider Arabesque S-Ray, a DWS spokeswoman said Thursday. The addition of Arabesque S-Ray boosts DWS' monitoring and sustainability performance assessment capabilities. Through machine learning and big data approach, the information provider derives over 200 ESG metrics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "Our investment in and cooperation with Arabesque S-Ray is another step for DWS towards taking a leading position in the field of sustainable investment," DWS CEO Asoka Woehrmann said in the release.

CHICAGO -- Grant Thornton LLP is collaborating with Microsoft and Hitachi Solutions to turn information into foresight. The collaboration uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help Grant Thornton identify its clients' nascent business needs. Grant Thornton can then design solutions to address its clients' challenges before they balloon. As one of the nation's largest accounting, tax and consulting firms, Grant Thornton works with clients to overcome all manner of hurdles, from financial and operational to technological and risk-related. "We focus on staying ahead of our clients' needs," explains Nichole Jordan, Grant Thornton's national managing partner of Markets, Clients and Industry.