Google's use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to better understand people's search intentions and surface the most relevant results is paying off according to new research. Today's search results are more relevant than ever, while many simplistic techniques that marketers use to artificially help their pages rank higher ‒ such as collecting more backlinks and increasing the number of times keywords are mentioned in text – are becoming less effective. The findings come from Searchmetrics' annual study of Google Ranking Factors which analysed the top 20 search results for 10,000 keywords on Google.com. The aim of the analysis (carried out every year since 2012) is to identify the key factors that high ranking web pages have in common, providing generalised insights and benchmarks to help marketers, SEO professionals and webmasters. "Google revealed last year that it is turning to sophisticated AI and machine-learning techniques, such as its RankBrain system, to help it better understand the real intention behind the words that searchers enter in the search box and make its results more relevant," explains Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics' Founder and CTO.

Here are some story lines I don't want you to miss today. Donald Trump has chosen one of the most consistently conservative presidential cabinets in recent history -- one whose presumed members' views don't always align with what Trump promised on the campaign trail. In Washington circles, the biggest guessing game is how it will all play out. Somehow, you have to think tweeting is involved. We don't want to jinx it, but … all of California should be in for some rain today.

Ardent Partners' recent research report, Sourcing and Procurement: The 2016-2017 Technology and Innovation Outlook Report, chronicles the evolution of sourcing and procurement technologies over the last two decades to where they are today and poised to go tomorrow. This report, which is chock full of great insights on many advanced, distinct sourcing and procurement technologies, has spawned a series here on CPO Rising that looks in depth at each of the innovative solutions coming onto the market today and in the near future. One of the outputs of machine learning is a greater understanding of user interfacing (UI) and how to improve user experiences (UX). But machine learning, powered by master data management, Big Data, and advanced algorithms, is on the cusp of delivering even more efficiency gains and insight to the end user. As discussed in the previous installment in this series, artificial intelligence (AI) is a natural extension of machine learning and is not-so-quietly preparing to take procurement, sourcing, and supply management to the next level of performance.

"I never forget a face", "She's got an honest face", "You could see it in his face", and "She looks young for her age" are just a few of the often-used phrases suggesting that faces are important for our interactions with other people and what we think we know about them. But can people really remember faces as well as they think they do, and can we really tell someone's age from their face? Or can artificial intelligence (AI) do it better? And can we really tell if someone is trustworthy just by looking at their face? Research shows that humans exhibit a wide range of facial recognition abilities.

Rob May is the CEO and Co-Founder of Talla, a platform for intelligent information delivery in Slack and Hipchat. Previously, Rob was the CEO and Co-Founder of Backupify, (acquired by Datto in 2014). Before that, he held engineering, business development, and management positions at various startups. Rob has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a MBA from the University of Kentucky. He is also a well known angel investor, a venture partner at Pillar, and is the creator and writer of the widely-read and highly-regarded AI newsletter, Technically Sentient. Rob May will be speaking at the Gigaom AI Now in San Francisco, February 15-16th. In anticipation of that, I caught up with him to ask a few questions.

Robot" Rami Malek has been nominated as best male actor in a drama series for his performance as Elliot Alderson in the hit USA Network series at the 23rd SAG Awards. The actor took to Twitter to share his delight over the nomination. "Gotta thank my peers for the love and respect they've showed me with this @SAGawards nomination," Malek said. Fans will know if Malek won the award when the ceremony airs on Jan. 29, 2017. Aside from a possible win from Malek, fans can also expect to see the actor in a project that has been waiting to be made for years now. The actor was tapped to replace Sasha Baron Cohen in the long-gestating Queen biopic titled "Bohemian Rhapsody," according to Variety. During an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Malek opened up for the first time about playing the legendary musician Freddie Mercury. Who doesn't know that music? Of course I have to prepare," Malek said about the status of the film.

The commonest questions about data science are to do with getting started. I have even found myself vacillating between these two states -- and to limit the sense of panic and doom that normally accompanies this statelessness, I maintain a list of resources that contain instructional material which achieves a healthy tradeoff between the two states. In other words, these are resources that help you learn machine learning and its underlying disciplines, as well as the nuances of the software tools available to implement them. On top of my list is Machine Learning for Hackers. One of the reasons I love this book is that it is actually a textbook on machine learning meant for hackers.

Data science and machine learning will become more mainstream, especially in the following industries: energy, finance (banking, insurance), agriculture (precision farming), transportation, urban planning, healthcare (customized treatments), even government. Some, with no familiarity with data science, will want to create a legal framework about how data can be analyzed, how the algorithms should behave, and to force public disclosure of algorithm secrets. I believe that they will fail, though Obamacare is an example where predictive algorithms were required to ignore metrics such as gender or age, to compute premiums, resulting in more expensive premiums for everyone. The rise of sensor data - that is, IoT - will create data inflation. Data quality, data relevancy, and security will continue to be of critical importance.

Evernote is trying to improve its digital-note-taking service, but it needs to access and read customer notes to do so. In a corporate blog post published this week, the company said it's updating the terms of its privacy policy to include a change that lets its employees access user notes to improve its machine-learning technologies. Machine learning technologies can allow powerful software to sift through data to find patterns and better automate tasks. Evernote said the decision to have some of its employees read user notes, effective Jan. 27, 2017, was done to "make sure that our machine learning technologies are working correctly, in order to surface the most relevant content and features to you." The company elaborated that although its current "computer systems do a pretty good job, sometimes a limited amount of human review is simply unavoidable in order to make sure everything is working exactly as it should."

Gigaom, the leader in emerging technology research, today announced that it will host its annual conference Gigaom AI Now in San Francisco, CA, February 15-16th. The one-and-a-half day conference, held at the Golden Gate Club, will share how companies are using AI today to drive significant ROI across every aspect of business, from administration to product development, sales and marketing, and customer experience. Attendees at this event will learn from world-leading practitioners how today's progressive businesses are applying the most innovative AI tools, platforms, and technologies in-house to drive revenue and improve operations across the enterprise. "In the last couple of years, AI has become the technology no enterprise can afford to ignore. It will change every department in almost every business. We have designed this event to focus entirely on how enterprises can use AI right now to improve their business in substantial ways," shared Gigaom Publisher, Byron Reese.