Newswire) 8x8, Inc. (NYSE:EGHT), a leading provider of global cloud communications and customer engagement solutions, today announced key appointments to accelerate the company's Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning capabilities, and expand its human resources organization globally. The team will lead the company's efforts to leverage big data, analytics and machine learning to allow companies to gain deep, actionable insights and improve customer experiences. Dr. Ali Arsanjani was formerly the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Analytics and Machine Learning at Deep Context, a deep-learning startup. Prior to Deep Context, he was a Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology Officer for Analytics and Machine Learning at IBM. Ali was responsible for worldwide enablement of highly customized solutions that combined real-time, unstructured content and structured analytics and machine learning to solve customer's complex problems while at IBM. He is a recognized authority in the AI industry and has chaired and participated in numerous machine learning research bodies, including The Open Group, and is responsible for co-leading the SOA Reference Architecture, SOA Maturity Model and Cloud Computing Architecture standards.

Earlier this month, when we set about to demystify some of the worst business jargon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, we could not have imagined it would hit so many of our readers' raw nerves. Hundreds felt compelled to get in touch with their own submissions, some unprintable, but the best of which we have "outlined" below. There was, of course, plenty of criticism of our selections, with many objecting to the singling out of "benchmarking" - a term that has been in use in many disciplines for several decades - and a passionate debate about the precise meaning of "negative feedback loops", more of which later. But perhaps the wittiest critique came from Charles Crowe, who maintains that "all these explanations lack granularity and do not contain metrics sufficient to let us know if we need a new paradigm". We have taken that on board, Charles.

As artificial intelligence (AI) technology goes mainstream, its potential to reshape sectors remains years away, says Moody's Investors Service. AI is a broad concept covering many different applications and models. After decades of slow progress, AI technologies have advanced meaningfully in recent years on increases in computing power, large and growing datasets and improvements in underlying algorithms. From large multinationals to small startups, companies are investing heavily, and real-world applications are becoming mainstream. While there are many applications for AI, high tech and media, automotives, financial services and manufacturing are particularly intense users at this stage.

A startup using artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle the proliferation of fake news and extremist content online will expand after closing a $1m (£720,000) seed funding round that attracted major US backers. London-based Factmata's funding round was led by tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban, but also attracted high-profile investors such as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, internet entrepreneur Sunil Paul and, more recently, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. The company will put the cash towards research and development, product development and expanding its team beyond machine-learning specialists. The round was initially closed last August but soon reopened to close formally in the last couple of weeks. Read more: Twitter fails to give MPs "straight answers" on Russian influence on Brexit "Every day there's an article or there's someone talking about fake news at the World Economic Forum, so I wanted to keep the round open so people could come in quite late in the process," founder and chief executive Dhruv Ghulati told City A.M. Factmata is developing both business and consumer-facing products, such as an anti-fake news platform for journalists, researchers and the public to use, as well as collaborating globally with advertisers and businesses that can use its algorithms to sift through and identify fake news, spoof sites and hate content. Ghulati, who was recently named one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 On the B2B side, this would help advertisers find junk content on potential sites they would be advertising on.

Apple finally released its HomePod on Friday after pushing back its planned December release. The HomePod comes into the smart speaker market that already has various options for customers, including gadgets from Amazon, Google and Sonos. The HomePod is one of the priciest home speaker models out there, priced just $50 less than the Google Home Max. The HomePod is powered by Siri, which allows users to send messages, create lists, set timers, get the news, check sports, traffic and weather updates. Siri also converts measurements, reads text messages out loud and helps with translations. The voice assistant works as a DJ as it progressively learns more about it user's taste in music.

Google's quest is to show results in the best interest of the searcher – Faster, better, relevant, and useful. And that should be your quest too! However, Google wouldn't just find out you're creating amazing content which is the best fit for their searchers. She won't just find you. You have to let her know. That's what SEO is all about. One of the best ways to predict and understand how Google works is through experiments and experts. Over the past few weeks, We had the opportunity to interview SEO experts and get their best tips and advice for the changes in the SEO landscape for 2018.

One AI content writer has written screenplays that went on to become very popular on YouTube. Another writes news for the Washington Post. Admittedly, the films are short and a bit odd -- surreal if you like -- and the news items are really just basic, fact-driven financial or sports reports. But both cases illustrate the ability of AI to create original content. Benjamin is a scriptwriting AI on a recurrent neural network that wrote the screenplays for Sunspring.

Our readers loved these deals most this week. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA Today's newsroom and any business incentives. This week, we saw some really fantastic deals on products we love, and the good news is that almost all the best deals are still available now. We took a closer look at what our readers were buying up this week to bring you the most popular deals of the week.

'We made it': Mother describes giving birth in hospital hallway The wireless 7in smart speaker uses spatial awareness technology to sense its place in a room and adjust audio output accordingly.

U.K. sports publisher GiveMeSport has used its proprietary technology to help grow its Facebook audience to an impressive 25 million followers. Now, it's integrating artificial intelligence from its new owner, Breaking Data Corp., to give it an advantage over competitors. The publisher is using AI to play at both ends of the news spectrum -- analysis and reaction pieces as well as breaking news. Before this, most of the publisher's 2,000 monthly articles, created by 14 full-time and 50 freelance writers, were reaction pieces. The new program also frees up writers' time to focus on longer-form 1,500-word articles, which carry more ad space around them.