What CFO wouldn't want to find a way to radically lower the cost of operations, boost productivity, increase insight across their company, and launch a range of new business opportunities? That's the promise of AI--and in the very near future, failing to use AI will be tantamount to management malfeasance, said Malcolm Frank, chief strategy officer and CMO of Cognizant, an international consulting and professional services company, during a talk at SXSW Interactive this week. How AI is incorporated into a company's operations will in turn affect how a company is structured as jobs change. At the same time, whole new industries will be created, which offer huge opportunities for those who are ready, Frank said. AI was one of the hottest topics at SXSW Interactive this year, with speakers speculating about the jobs it will end--and spawn, as well as the business opportunities it will create, and the HAL-like dangers it will pose.

London, March 15: Sixty-eight per cent of organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) for IT functions, but 70 per cent believe AIs greatest impact by 2020 will be in marketing, customer service, finance and HR, a new study said on Wednesday. According to global IT consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), organisations with the greatest financial improvements from AI investments expect three times as many new AI-related roles by 2020 as compared to companies with smallest improvements. "Given the increasing digital disruption across every industry and the public sector, AI should become a key and integrated component of an organisation's strategy," said K Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer of TCS, in a statement. Eighty-four per cent of companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as "transformative". Financial investments in AI are set to rise, as seven per cent of companies each earmarked at least $250 million toward AI in 2016 and two per cent already plan to invest more than $1 billion by 2020, likely looking to gain a competitive advantage as early adopters, the findings showed.

LONDON: Sixty-eight per cent of organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) for IT functions, but 70 per cent believe AIs greatest impact by 2020 will be in marketing, customer service, finance and HR, a new study said on Wednesday. According to global IT consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), organisations with the greatest financial improvements from AI investments expect three times as many new AI-related roles by 2020 as compared to companies with smallest improvements. "Given the increasing digital disruption across every industry and the public sector, AI should become a key and integrated component of an organisation's strategy," said K Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer of TCS, in a statement. Eighty-four per cent of companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as "transformative". Financial investments in AI are set to rise, as seven per cent of companies each earmarked at least $250 million toward AI in 2016 and two per cent already plan to invest more than $1 billion by 2020, likely looking to gain a competitive advantage as early adopters, the findings showed.

NEW YORK; Mar. 8, 2017 – Rentokil, a global pest control company based in the UK, is piloting an Artificial Intelligence app developed by Accenture to help its almost 5,000 pest control technicians fight bugs faster for customers. The solution utilizes a partnership announced last year, when Accenture and Google joined forces to bring to market industry-specific solutions that help clients use cloud, mobility, machine learning and analytics to advance their digital transformation agenda and improve business performance. Rentokil technicians are some of the best trained in the industry but even they come across unusual insects that they can't identify. As part of a larger rollout of new Android mobile devices and apps to its field service workers, Rentokil took advantage of Accenture's alliance with Google to solve their business challenge through an innovative mobile app that identifies pests and automatically presents information, customer recommendations, and treatment plans. The Android app, called PestID and built by Accenture Mobility, part of Accenture Digital, uses Google's CloudML image classification technology to help field technicians identify and treat pest problems quickly and efficiently.

See it in action--and saving money--in field service. Artificial intelligence (AI) has never felt like a human-friendly term. The very notion of intelligence that is artificial is a little, well … unsettling. Will machines ultimately replace us? As we gather at Mobile World Congress, in part to explore the ultimate reach of AI in an increasingly mobile business world, one thing is clear: AI and machine learning technologies won't replace humans in the enterprise, but they're going to change the game considerably.

It seems like every organization today is betting on artificial intelligence (AI). But what does that really mean? We asked those gathered at a recent AI conference to share their definition. Hear how--and why--they see things so differently.

Can artificial intelligence do the work of high-powered consultants? A Munich-based startup founded by a math major is doing just that. His fast-growing software startup offers companies like 3M, Cisco, and General Electric better results at a fraction of the cost -- and he's grabbing market share in a $15 billion market from consulting powerhouses like IBM and Accenture. Should investors in those incumbents be worried? Before getting into why, let's take a trip down my memory lane.

Komatsu is adopting artificial intelligence technologies for a service that can help construction supervisors and workers do their jobs more efficiently and rapidly. The Japanese maker of construction machinery plans to add the AI-based service to the menu of its Smart Construction service sometime later this year. Launched in February 2015, the advisory service uses drones and other equipment to conduct surveys and generate 3D data for uploading to construction machinery for semi-automatic operation. With the incorporation of AI technologies, Komatsu will be able to offer a wider range of services that bring a degree of automation, not just to machinery but also to the scheme of execution. The Japanese construction sector faces an aging and diminishing pool of skilled workers, and Komatsu sees AI as a way to replicate their knowledge and improve productivity at the building site.

Ducati Corse Races Ahead of the Pack with Accenture and Machine Learning Intelligent MotoGP Racing Bikes Build New Aptitude for Optimal Results MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA; February 27, 2017 – Ducati Corse, the racing department of Ducati Motor Holding, a world leader in sports motorcycle manufacturing, is working with Accenture (NYSE: ACN) to integrate Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence technologies into the testing of its MotoGP racing bikes. Ducati Corse wants to make testing its race bikes faster, cheaper and more effective. Accenture Analytics, already Official Digital Partner to the Ducati Team racing in the MotoGP World Championship, has lately been working with them to create an intelligent testing approach with a bespoke analytics engine. Integrated Machine Learning technologies mean that the more data that enters the system, the more configurations are available for testing with increasingly accurate performance predictions. Data visualization tools designed for an intuitive user experience will allow testing engineers to interact with insights, tweaking them at any point to create a new perspective on configurations and race times.

Software-defined networking, or SDN, offers automation and orchestration advantages, leading to an intelligent enterprise. SDN can enable automated cyber defense, especially as organizations look to more effectively respond and mitigate cyber attacks. However, more advanced techniques, including the application of machine learning, can be used to shift an organization's focus from automated response to proactively defending the network. This discussion will focus on the use of SDN to not only enable security orchestration and automated cyber response, but to proactively alter the attack surface to deceive potential adversaries.