Artificial intelligence (AI), one of 20 core technologies I identified back in 1983 as the drivers of exponential economic value creation, is rapidly working its way into our lives from Amazon's Alexa and Facebook's M, to Google's Now and Apple's Siri. An example of how far AI has come is the recent news that a Google supercomputer, using its advanced AI software, was able to win a stunning 3-0 victory in a man vs. machine face-off against Go grandmaster, one of the game's all-time champions. For those who are not familiar with Go, it is a 3,000-year-old game that is widely considered to be the most complex game ever invented because it is reported to have more possible board configurations than there are atoms in the universe. Until just a few months ago, it was thought that a computer could not defeat a human grandmaster for at least another decade due to the game's complexity. How did Google's AlphaGo program advance so much faster than many expected?

Accenture has introduced an intelligent automation platform for application services that provides human technology workers with better productivity and insights to enhance business performance. The platform, Accenture myWizard, augments human technologists with virtual agents powered by artificial intelligence. It helps humans and machines reach their exponential potential in application services. The platform currently includes several intelligent virtual agents that use machine learning to collaborate with their human co-workers. The platform brings together various Accenture industry assets such as intelligent and analytics tools and methods, as well as tools from across the company's alliance partner ecosystem.

For the consumer & retail and banking industries, standard features can be configured into customer interaction templates for use in attending to customers or for marketing activities. In addition, Pepper can store information from interacting with customers on the cloud for future analysis, and the data can then be visualized, providing an integrated streamflow through to customer support. Pepper also has sensors to detect anyone approaching it, which enables interaction with that individual. Following the interaction, the new customer information can be reviewed through Interactive Analytics. "We need to know more about Pepper. In ten years, Pepper will be used in ways we never imagined. Accenture is working together with Softbank Robotics to take it to another level, thinking about how it can help solve our client's challenges and how it can be used to provide better customer services."

Salesforce's recent acquisitions of AI startups including MetaMind will enable it to keep pace with the functions that consumer-focused companies … From Dick Tracy's watch to Wonder Woman's Bracelets to Bat Girls total recall and technopathy, fiction has a intriguing dialog with invention. Enable natural interaction with your app using a conversational interface powered by the Watson Developer Cloud APIs. KPMG LLP and IBM today announced plans to apply IBM's Watson cognitive computing technology to KPMG's professional services offerings. It can answer guests' questions about the hotel and tourist destinations. The hotel has recently welcomed a new concierge named "Connie," you see, and it's actually a Nao robot powered by IBM's AI.

Accenture have announced the global rollout of an intelligent automation platform, Accenture myWizard, that enables smarter, more innovative and more efficient application services consisting of systems integration and application development and management. The platform combines Accenture's industry and technology assets and business knowledge across 40 industries with intelligent automation, including artificial intelligence at its core. Accenture myWizard supports productivity improvement for clients by employing a team of virtual agents, powered by artificial intelligence, to analyze data, identify patterns and guide human workers to make better informed decisions. This guides human workers to make better informed decisions that can drive highly impactful business performance which can include significant improvement in application quality, cost reduction and speed to market. The new platform brings together numerous proprietary Accenture industry assets, including intelligent and analytics tools and methods, as well as tools from across Accenture's alliance partner ecosystem.

A recent study by researchers at Oxford University and consultants Deloitte may have given finance professionals pause for thought. It found that, based on the nature of their work and the expected advance of machine intelligence, it is 95% likely that charted accountants will be replaced by some form of automation over the next 20 years. That is a startling figure, but it should come as no surprise that the work of the finance department is ripe for automation. Since 2004 the median number of full-time employees working in the function at big companies has declined by 40% to about 71 people for every US 1bn of revenue, down from 119 people, according to Hackett Group, a consulting firm. This is due, in part at least, to the increased use of automation within the finance department, the researchers say.

This is the first of a three-post series on machine learning. Is machine learning just a fancy word for the same old computer programming we have employed for decades? Or, is machine learning a mystical computer that can learn anything? More importantly, why does it matter to your business? The most effective way to define machine learning is to compare it with traditional computer programming.

It is mostly corporate bullshit, but I do think it is noteworthy that Accenture is starting to take AI/ML seriously. Accenture is perhaps the world's largest consulting firm.

But what if you are not one of these? I received the following job ad in my mailbox (see below in italics), from a third-party recruiter, and it's probably for a data science position at Nike near Portland, Oregon (my guess). Basically, it's a 6-month gig to build an A/B platform. I discuss here a few aspects that make this job ad unlikely to attract talent, as well as remedies. This skills mix is not found in typical employees.

First up was KPMG, which announced that it is signing up to IBM's "Jeopardy!"-winning Given the time, cost and (dare I say it) inane world of audit, this could be an interesting move. IBM is, of course, pushing Watson incessantly as its huge opportunity for growth -- it acquired The Weather Company partially as a vertical big data opportunity, but also for its huge data sets to continue improving Watson's performance. Healthcare, too, has seen IBM push its Watson luxe. But now financial services are the game, and KPMG advises that its consultants will use Watson to analyze massive volumes of financial data in order to detect anomalies.