REDMOND, Washington -- Sept. 29, 2016 -- Microsoft Corp. announced on Thursday it has formed the Microsoft AI and Research Group, bringing together Microsoft's world-class research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers focused on the company's AI product efforts. The new group will be led by computer vision luminary Harry Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran whose career has spanned leadership roles across Microsoft Research and Bing engineering. Microsoft is dedicated to democratizing AI for every person and organization, making it more accessible and valuable to everyone and ultimately enabling new ways to solve some of society's toughest challenges. Today's announcement builds on the company's deep focus on AI and will accelerate the delivery of new capabilities to customers across agents, apps, services and infrastructure. In addition to Shum's existing leadership team, several of the company's engineering leaders and teams will join the newly formed group including Information Platform, Cortana and Bing, and Ambient Computing and Robotics teams led by David Ku, Derrick Connell and Vijay Mital, respectively.

Utter the words and the first thing many people -- if not everyone -- would think of is a "Terminator"-like sci-fi dystopia where sentient machines are hunting humans down. These misgivings about what an AI-dominated world would be like are not alleviated when the likes of Stephen Hawking warn that AI "could spell the end of the human race." Microsoft, Google, IBM, Facebook and Amazon want to change this gloomy perception. The tech giants on Wednesday announced the launch of a new non-profit organization -- the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, or the Partnership on AI, for short -- to advance the general public's understanding of AI technologies, and debate concerns related to ethics, privacy, and transparency. "Together, the organization's members will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology," the companies said in a joint statement.

Initially based in Peru, Laboratoria has expanded into Mexico and Chile.

Banks are positioned to pioneer the use of artificial intelligence to help them retain clients in an era of technological disruption, IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said at a conference in Geneva. "Financial services, I believe, can and will lead the world into this era," Rometty said at the Sibos conference on Wednesday, sharing a panel with Sergio Ermotti, CEO of UBS Group AG. "The ultimate competitive advantage is being cognitive." International Business Machines Corp. has touted its "cognitive solutions" unit and its Watson artificial intelligence platform as crucial to future growth. Revenue at that unit increased 3.5 percent to 4.7 billion in the second quarter, following five straight quarterly declines, the company reported in July.

The analysis has identified nearly 200 real-world enterprise use cases for AI that are classified into 25 industry sectors. The firm forecasts that revenue for enterprise AI applications will increase from 358 million in 2016 to 31.2 billion by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 64.3%. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are quickly gaining mindshare among corporate executives around the world, driving a proliferation of use cases that touch virtually every industry. AI technologies, which include deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision, among others, are designed to endow computers with human-like faculties such as hearing, seeing, reasoning, and learning. But AI enables computers to do some things better than humans, especially when it comes to processing very large amounts of data quickly, efficiently, and accurately.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the global artificial intelligence in education market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 39% during the forecast period. This research report titled'Global Artificial Intelligence in Education Market 2016-2020' provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes an up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all geographical regions. "High student dropout rates coupled with macro-economic pressure to strengthen the general education levels is pushing educational institutions to adopt mechanisms to improve learning quality. Institutions are investing in artificial intelligence technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality, to positively impact the education industry," says Jhansi Mary, a lead analyst at Technavio for education technology research.

Microsoft announced today that it will make Adobe Marketing Cloud the preferred marketing service for its Dynamics 365 Enterprise offering. The new partnership will give customers a powerful, comprehensive marketing service for intelligent business applications, Microsoft says. First announced in July ahead of its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft Dynamics 365 will become available to customers in the coming weeks. It is a new, Azure cloud-hosted combination of the software giant's CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource management) solutions. The goal is clear enough: To modernize these capabilities and bring them to market as a public cloud business management service. Like its on-premises Dynamics offerings, Dynamics 365 allows customers to plug a wide array of business apps and services, customizing the solution according to their industry and other needs.

The Volkswagen Group continues to drive the digital transformation forward and is expanding its competence with regard to artificial intelligence (AI), not only with a view to using this key technology in the field of autonomous driving and in production, but also to speed up corporate processes. To that end, Prof. Patrick van der Smagt will be joining the team of AI experts and data scientists at the Volkswagen Group's Data Lab in Munich from October, and will lead the AI team. Van der Smagt is Associate Professor at Technische Universität München and one of Europe's leading experts in deep learning and robotics. Dr. Martin Hofmann, Chief Information Officer at the Volkswagen Group, commented: "We are delighted that Professor van der Smagt will be joining the Data Lab. This shows how attractive the Volkswagen Group's IT labs are for distinguished scientists and experts in artificial intelligence. Top specialists from Volkswagen, industry partners and the academic world as well as startups jointly develop and test forward-looking ideas in our labs – working in an environment similar to Silicon Valley."

As an example, Mediatrix Capital makes complex and profitable decisions based on nine algorithms that have specific hedging and correlated counter positions to track changes in market direction. Multiple strategies maximize returns and are completely unbiased to market direction. Stansberry Research is one of the leading independent financial research firms in the world, delivering unbiased investment intelligence to self-directed investors seeking an edge in a wide variety of sectors. Stansberry Research employs over 12 analysts and researchers, including former hedge fund managers and buy-side analysts who publish proprietary insights to over 500,000 paying subscribers in over 120 countries worldwide.

Apple Inc. is pressing ahead with the development of an Echo-like smart-home device based on the Siri voice assistant, according to people familiar with the matter. Started more than two years ago, the project has exited the research and development lab and is now in prototype testing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing unannounced Apple projects. Like Amazon Inc.'s Echo, the device is designed to control appliances, locks, lights and curtains via voice activation, the people said. Apple hasn't finalized plans for the device and could still scrap the project. If a product reaches the market, it would be Apple's most significant piece of new hardware since the company announced the Apple Watch in 2014.