A drone analytics solutions specialist has teamed up with a insurance provider in a move designed to bolster its services in the run up to run-up peak hurricane season. Everest Insurance announced today an agreement with Airware, designed engagement to add precision and efficiency to the claims management process. The partnership will also help expedite the claims adjustment process by leveraging Airware's aerial data analytics and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Ryan Cole, Everest Insurance director, commented: "Beyond flying drones, this relationship will empower our adjusters and inspectors to elevate the customer experience. We are optimistic this technology may further reduce claims cycle time, improve response time in the wake of catastrophic events, and help customers proactively identify potentially hazardous conditions through aerial identification."

Cerebri AI, an Austin startup that uses AI to improve customer service, just announced a major round of funding -- a $5 million Series A led by Microsoft's venture fund, M12. With the fresh funds, the company plans to expand its operations and support the release of its new Cerebri Values product, which "quantifies each customer's commitment" to a product, according to the company's press release announcing the deal. "With the fantastic support from our investors and the capital raised in our Series A financing, today we are launching a truly revolutionary way for major enterprises to engage with their customers," Jean Belanger, Cerebri AI's CEO and co-founder said in a statement. The company uses machine learning to give companies the ability to track and analyze the patterns that lead to purchases. "Cerebri has created a product that is fundamentally changing how customer-facing sales and success professionals can analyze the customer journey," said M12 Partner Elliott Robinson in a statement.

Netradyne, a leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology focusing on driver and commercial fleet safety, today announced that its Driveri platform has been selected as the winner of the "Best AI-based Solution for Transportation" award from AI Breakthrough, an independent organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market today. "Netradyne's recognition by the Artificial Intelligence Awards as being the best AI-based solution for transportation reiterates our company's belief that we are driving forward the potential for AI in all aspects of the transportation space including commercial trucking and autonomous vehicles," said Sandeep Pandya, Netradyne President. "This organization recognizes cutting edge AI technology at the highest levels and to have the Driveri platform mentioned alongside so many other impactful companies such as Google, NVIDIA and IBM is a tremendous honor. We are elated by the recognition and will continue to look for innovative ways to showcase AI's unique and impactful capabilities within transportation." The mission of the AI Breakthrough Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the innovation, hard work and success in a range of AI and machine learning related categories, including AI platforms, Deep Learning, Smart Robotics, Business Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, industry specific AI applications and many more.

Windward, the pioneering maritime risk analytics startup that's fundamentally changing the marine insurance landscape, today announced it had raised $16.5m in Series C funding. It brings the total raised to date to $38.9m. The round was led by San Francisco-based insurtech fund, XL Innovate. Existing investors, Horizons Ventures and Aleph, also participated, as did a number of individuals, including Salesforce Chairman & CEO, Marc Benioff. As part of the fundraising, Tom Hutton, XL Innovate Managing Partner and former CEO of RMS, will become a board director.

Tessian announced today that it has raised $13 million in venture capital as the U.K.-based company seeks to address the problem of enterprise email security through automation. Formerly known by the more literal name CheckRecipient, Tessian uses machine learning to discover and fix misaddressed emails, a seemingly mundane hiccup that in fact causes big security headaches when sensitive information falls into the wrong hands. Tessian notes that the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office receives more security incident reports about misaddressed emails than about any other type of security issue. And new European privacy rules could result in hefty fines for such mistakes. "With the recent report from the ICO that misaddressed emails are now the number one data security incident reported to them, and GDPR now in full swing, companies should make addressing this risk a top security priority," said Tessian CEO and cofounder Tim Sadler, in a statement.

Kroger, one of the country's largest grocery retailers, looks to bring its grocery delivery service into the future with plans to utilize autonomous vehicles to send goods to customers, the company announced Thursday. The partnership between the Ohio-based grocery chain and driverless car company Nuro means that customers can place same-day delivery orders through Kroger's ClickList ordering system and Nuro's fleet of self-driving vehicles will deliver those orders. Kroger, with 2,800 stores across the U.S, hopes that with the help of Nuro's technology it will "change the status quo of grocery delivery through convenience at a low price." It is the first time the tech company's hardware and software are being utilized, the company said. The rollout is slated for fall.

Niantic Labs, the developer behind "Pokémon Go," has announced that it is planning to open its augmented reality platform to third-party developers. The company also shared it's vision for the future of its AR platform, which includes advancements in machine learning and computer vision. "Today, we are offering a preview of the technology we have been developing: the Niantic Real World Platform," Niantic CEO John Hanke said in a blog post. "This is the first time we've given an update of this nature publicly, and I'm confident it will provide a sense of how committed we are to the future of AR, and to furthering the type of experiences we have pioneered." The CEO also revealed that Niantic has acquired the computer vision and machine learning company Matrix Mill and established a new office in London.

Perfecto has announced that its Continuous Quality Lab now supports three web testing frameworks: Codecept, Gauge, and NightwatchJS. This added support expands the company's existing set of supported test frameworks, which include Protractor, webdriverIO, selenium, and Quantum. "Development teams are focused on choosing the best tools that integrate within their toolchains," said Yoram Mizrachi, CTO and co-founder at Perfecto. "BDD frameworks can help dev teams go faster and fully achieve continuous testing across multiple web browsers. Our technology is designed to easily integrate with a variety of tools. We are continually validating our solution supports the frameworks being used by our customers."

In 2015, there were more than 6.3 million car accidents reported that involved property damage1 with insurance fraud accounting for 10 percent of property/casualty claims processed2. While not every accident resulted in an insurance claim, those that did required extensive effort to be verified manually. To help automate the process and to fight against fraud which contributes to rising insurance rates, Metromile, the leader in pay-per-mile car insurance in the U.S., staged the world's slowest car crashes to generate data and used a machine learning technology to help spot fraud more quickly. "With machine learning technology, our team will be able to better prevent insurance fraud and assist customers with hard-to-prove but common claim types, like hit-and-run collisions, car theft, and rear-ends," said Paul Anzel, a Data Scientist at Metromile. Each test vehicle was equipped with a Pulse device, a small GPS-enabled device that plugs into the OBD-II port, to record sensory data, to generate the digital First Notice of Loss (FNOL) and capture accident details.

Thoughtonomy, the leading Intelligent Automation platform provider, today launched a new online portal for its enhanced partner program, as it continues its rapid international growth. The new partner portal provides Thoughtonomy's partners with immediate, 24/7 access to all of its training and enablement materials, including exclusive best practice and marketing resources. By signing up to Thoughtonomy's enhanced partner program and being able to offer clients Thoughtonomy's market-leading Intelligent Automation technology, partners can ensure they have a differentiated offering in one of the fastest-growing, dynamic areas of the technology sector. The program offers a range of benefits to partners, including lead referrals, co-selling assistance, demand generation support, certification training and dedicated account management. In February this year, Thoughtonomy announced that, as part of its strategic growth plan, it was setting out to increase its channel business from 45% of transactions to over 90% in the following 12 months.