DENVER, June 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RLH Corporation (NYSE:RLH) announced today that they have successfully deployed an industry-first Artificial Intelligence Virtual Agent for Central Reservations to support all 1,400 system hotels. This announcement follows the successful completion of a three-month program pilot originally announced on April 24, 2019. "The results of our pilot have been very positive," said RLH Corporation Director of Telephony Optimization & Analytics, April Weatherly. "We're seeing travelers engage with the technology at a rate higher than we anticipated and are very pleased with the Virtual Agent's ability to resolve traveler questions autonomously, reducing the cost of non-revenue related calls." In concert with the systemwide rollout of the Virtual Agent, new features and capabilities have been deployed to further support travelers.

Similarly, TIL 2019 was aligned with recent advancements in AI and deep learning, introducing the participants to computer vision concepts through the main competition challenge. Participants coded and refined their AI models to accurately recognise gestures and poses in images, which could have applications ranging from soldier health and fitness to detection of anomalous behaviour for camp security. DSTA conducted upskilling for students prior to the competition. To further enrich the students' experience and perspectives, talks by industry leaders in AI were also conducted.

Deloitte Global announced that Deloitte firms are now offering clients an artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The platform can monitor, measure, and analyze changes in tax regulation in real-time to give Deloitte clients the edge in monitoring and responding to regulatory updates across the world. The AI platform is the result of a collaboration between Deloitte firms and Signal A.I. Signal's proprietary AI technology was trained by Deloitte tax experts to understand key regulatory changes in over 100 jurisdictions from over 100 regulators, tax authorities and government bodies. "Tax professionals are being asked to do more with fewer resources--to stay ahead of more risks, draw insights from more data, track more regulations across more jurisdictions. To address these challenges, they are transforming how they operate and manage processes by implementing new technologies, such as AI, robotic process automation and natural language processing," says Conrad Young, Deloitte Global Tax & Legal, Chief Digital Officer.

Benefitfocus, Inc. (BNFT), a leading cloud-based benefits management platform and services provider, today announced it will present findings and recommendations from its recent Consumer Benefits Coverage Index report at the SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition. The conference is the largest gathering of human resources (HR) professionals, attracting over 18,000 attendees in Las Vegas from June 23-26, 2019. Based on a sample of one million consumers on the Benefitfocus platform which serves over 25 million individuals, the Consumer Benefits Coverage Index is a measure of how well the typical American's employee benefits portfolio aligns with their expected coverage needs. Co-presenting from Benefitfocus will be Cindi Van Meir, Director of Brand Marketing and Misty Guinn, Director of Benefits & Wellness. The session takes place on the opening day of the conference, Sunday, June 23, 2019, from 4:20-4:50 PM in the HR Technology Solutions Theater in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the first recipients and list of global women leaders and pioneers in AI for business. The list recognizes and celebrates women across a variety of industries and geographies for pioneering the use of AI to advance their companies in areas such as innovation, growth, and transformation. IBM will celebrate the honorees during an inaugural recognition event on June 12, 2019 at the IBM Watson Experience Center in New York, New York where the women will share their experiences leading AI initiatives in their organizations. Students from IBM's P-Tech program will attend to hear from these leaders who have applied AI technology in diverse and meaningful ways to help drive business innovation. "Artificial Intelligence is poised to drive dramatic advances in every industry," said Michelle Peluso, SVP, Digital Sales & CMO, IBM, who also serves as Leader of IBM's Women's Initiative.

Talkdesk Agent Assist is powered by Talkdesk iQ native artificial intelligence (AI), a pivotal enabler of all Talkdesk's products, providing real-time guidance for frontline employees to respond to customer needs quickly and accurately. As a customer states their need, agents are provided answers or supporting information immediately to expedite the conversation and simplify tasks. Talkdesk Agent Assist intelligently positions information from a knowledge base or CRM as a suggested action in real-time, contributing to a significant reduction in handle time and improving customer experience. Additionally, information captured within the agent interface can be automatically added to account profiles or work item tickets, within the CRM, without any additional agent effort.

The acquisition brings Tableau's analytics and Salesforce's AI-powered Einstein platform together, which the press release claims "will deliver the most intelligent and intuitive analytics and visualization platform for every department and every user at any company". "We are bringing together the world's #1 CRM with the #1 analytics platform. Tableau helps people see and understand data, and Salesforce helps people engage and understand customers. It's truly the best of both worlds for our customers--bringing together two critical platforms that every customer needs to understand their world." Accenture (NYSE:ACN), along with digital services provider Avanada, has been recognized in a recently published report from IDC (International Data Corporation) for its leadership in worldwide Microsoft implementation services.

Cisco helps IT teams better understand network behavior and predict issues with new artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. Since its introduction two years ago, Cisco's intent-based networking has reinvented how networks are built and managed. Cisco is furthering this effort through multidomain integrations designed to provide end-to-end security, segmentation and application experience. Cisco is delivering these new software advancements via software subscriptions, granting customers access to ongoing innovation. SAN DIEGO, California – Cisco Live U.S. – Today, Cisco announces software innovations designed to make managing and securing networks easier.

Cisco Live U.S. – Today, Cisco announces software innovations designed to make managing and securing networks easier. As today's businesses increasingly invest in digital technologies, IT teams are struggling under the amplified workload. To alleviate this burden and allow IT to focus on delivering innovation, Cisco is introducing new artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to allow IT teams to function at machine speed and scale through personalized network insights. As part of its broadened capabilities offering, Cisco is also unveiling innovations to more effectively manage users and applications across the entire enterprise network – from campus networks and wide-area networks, to data centers and the IoT edge. IT teams currently face a daunting challenge.

The escalating need for human-robot collaboration in the manufacturing industry for overall cost reduction is significantly driving the global artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing market. Robots play a crucial role in the manufacturing industry. Due to constant technological enhancements, it is predicted that the overall workforce and manpower will be replaced by robots in the future. AI-based robots are capable of monitoring every single stage of the manufacturing procedure and later provide gathered information through analytics software. As per the analysis of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), a number of industrial robots deployed in factories accounted for over 1.3 million globally in 2018.