Within a decade marketers will have to worry more about the algorithm than emotion Chris Stephenson, chief strategist for media agency PHD, has predicted. The bold pronouncement was made during the international keynote last week at the Mumbrella360 conference with Stephenson warning that humans are not far away from a future where consumers will have virtual personal assistants (VPAs) who will make purchasing decisions for them. "The AI (artificial intelligence) train is coming," Stephenson said. "As marketers, as media people this isn't something that will just vaguely enter our world. Artificial intelligence is going to come hurtling through our yard, it is going to change our industry, it is going to change our what we do and how we do it. "It is going to have massive significant impacts on our industry." Stephenson cited the rapid developments in the AI space in recent years and argued that these developments would soon flow to consumers. "Where we are is one minute to midnight on AI eve," he said. "The last few decades have see various technologies and developments that have got us to this moment where we are on the edge of an AI future.

The reality is AI has been around for decades, however, compute power and the seismic drop in the cost of processing data means that early market movers will share considerable competitive advantage over their competitors. A host of lauded technology CEOs claim that AI will have a greater business impact than social, cloud and mobile put together, this is some statement when you consider these are all multi-billion dollar industries within their own right. The US technology market for AI is exploding in front of our eyes, yet other regions such as UK&I, EMEA, APAC and Indian markets are somewhat nascent, sceptical and still testing the water. Here at Chatterbox Labs we are seeing global corporations headquartered in the US looking for multi-lingual AI that can be deployed in lightning quick timeframes with speed, scale and accuracy outcomes. The word "OUTCOME" within the AI field is somewhat distorted, therefore, we as a company derive this term to fall within 3 categories: The scepticism surrounding AI business benefit is fully justified within the market today in that many large organisations claim to have AI market ready today by spending tens of millions on advertising and TV campaigns.

Viptela, the Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) company, today announced that it was named a top 50 tech startup to watch in the fourth annual Startup50 competition. Each year, hundreds of tech startups in five categories are evaluated by a panel of experts and voted on by readers in order to determine the top 50 winners. Previous Big 50 startups have since achieved billion dollar valuations (Cloudera), been acquired by major incumbents (Eucalyptus) and completed successful IPOs (Square). "I won't be at all surprised if several of the startups in the Big 50-2016 list are household names in the coming years," said Jeff Vance, founder and Editor-in-Chief of Startup50. "This is a really strong lineup, with startups tackling everything from artificial intelligence to water treatment to cyber-security and Big Data."

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, also known as E3, will be prefaced by Bethesda Softworks and Electronic Arts press conferences Sunday, but a lot of news has already leaked ahead of the big event. Several big games have been revealed, and rumblings about new Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony video game consoles have been swelling for months. Based on the rumors, E3 2016 at the Los Angeles Convention Center June 14-16 is shaping up to be a fascinating event that could have a great effect on the video game industry. Nothing gets gamers' blood flowing like a good console unveiling. E3 is the place where consoles are launched, which is why 2016 is an odd year in the event's history.

Apple Inc announced a series of long-awaited enhancements to its App Store on Wednesday, but the new features may not ease concerns of developers and analysts who say that the App Store model - and the very idea of the single-purpose app - has seen its best days. The revamped App Store will let developers advertise their wares in search results and give developers a bigger cut of revenues on subscription apps, while Apple said it has already dramatically sped up its app-approval process. The goal is to sustain the virtuous cycle at the heart of the hugely lucrative iPhone business. Software developers make apps for the iPhone because its customers are willing to pay, and those customers, in turn, pay a premium for the device because it has the best apps. The store is now more strategically important than ever for Apple as sales of the iPhone begin to level off and the company looks to software and services to fill the gap.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 9 (Reuters) - Apple Inc announced a series of long-awaited enhancements to its App Store on Wednesday, but the new features may not ease concerns of developers and analysts who say that the App Store model - and the very idea of the single-purpose app - has seen its best days. The revamped App Store will let developers advertise their wares in search results and give developers a bigger cut of revenues on subscription apps, while Apple said it has already dramatically sped up its app-approval process. The goal is to sustain the virtuous cycle at the heart of the hugely lucrative iPhone business. Software developers make apps for the iPhone because its customers are willing to pay, and those customers, in turn, pay a premium for the device because it has the best apps. The store is now more strategically important than ever for Apple as sales of the iPhone begin to level off and the company looks to software and services to fill the gap.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc announced a series of long-awaited enhancements to its App Store on Wednesday, but the new features may not ease concerns of developers and analysts who say that the App Store model - and the very idea of the single-purpose app - has seen its best days. The revamped App Store will let developers advertise their wares in search results and give developers a bigger cut of revenues on subscription apps, while Apple said it has already dramatically sped up its app-approval process. The goal is to sustain the virtuous cycle at the heart of the hugely lucrative iPhone business. Software developers make apps for the iPhone because its customers are willing to pay, and those customers, in turn, pay a premium for the device because it has the best apps. The store is now more strategically important than ever for Apple as sales of the iPhone begin to level off and the company looks to software and services to fill the gap.

Norwalk, Conn.--June 8, 2016-- TMC announced today the conference program for the Smart Machine Conference, held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV from July 11 – 14, 2016. The Smart Machines conference is dedicated to exploring the business advantages of technologies like AI, Autonomous Robots, Chat bots, Neural Networks, Deep Learning, Cloud, Big Data, Virtual Reality Assistants and so much more. The conference program includes keynotes, case studies, networking opportunities and a robust exhibit floor. "The smart machine revolution is here and disrupting society as a whole whether it's fraud detection powered by machine learning, customer service chat bots or a champion chess playing computer," said TMC's CEO, Rich Tehrani, the conference's Executive Producer. "At the Smart Machine Conference attendees will learn the competitive advantages of these technologies and what the industry's future holds."

Wix.com Inc, the creator of a cloud-based web development platform, has announced that it will be offering a new web design tool called Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), which the company says is capable of building websites tailored to individual users. The new tool works by pulling in curated layouts, images, text, forms, and other website features that Wix says will be customized to the needs of each user. In a release, Wix said that its AI has built its algorithms based on 86 million users, and the company said the Wix ADI will "ensure every website design will be stunning and complete." "Wix ADI is the world's first technology platform that combines website design and content creation with artificial intelligence to enable complete websites to be created in a matter of minutes," said Avishai Abrahami, Co-Founder and CEO of Wix. "Building a professional and complete website is the first step in getting online, and while Wix today makes it easy, challenges still exist. With Wix ADI, we solve these challenges, getting businesses online with a fully functioning, stunning website easier and faster than ever. Technology innovation is Wix's core competency, and for nearly a decade, small businesses have relied on Wix not only to build websites but also to manage and grow their businesses online."

CrowdFlower, the essential human-in-the-loop platform for data science teams, today announced its recent 10M venture funding. The investment round was led by Canvas Ventures, Trinity Ventures, and Microsoft. The capital will be used to fuel the adoption of CrowdFlower AI which combines training data, machine learning and human-in-the-loop in a single platform. "We've seen companies like Tesla and Uber build large data science teams and adopt AI and machine learning to solve billion dollar problems like driverless cars," said Lukas Biewald, founder and chief executive officer at CrowdFlower. "But we wanted to bring AI and machine learning within the reach of every business to attack million dollar problems such as classifying customer support tickets or generating customer insights from social data. With CrowdFlower AI, companies can now easily deploy machine learning models that are commercially viable at a much lower price point."