Applied machine learning

Forget the images of men in hard hats standing before factory gates, of men with coal-blackened faces, of men perched high above New York City on steel beams. The emerging face of the American working class is a Hispanic woman who has never set foot on a factory floor. That's not the kind of work much of the working class does anymore. Instead of making things, they are more often paid to serve people: to care for someone else's children or someone else's parents; to clean another family's home. The decline of the old working class has meant both an economic triumph for the nation and a personal tribulation for many of the workers.

Discussing the ways digital machines and artificial intelligence (AI) will change our lives seems like a stimulating conversation for a dinner party, but truthfully, the Internet of Things is already reshaping the way we interact with our world and it's only the beginning. Industries are transforming and careers are rising or falling. The predominant perspectives on AI range from utopian, where machines create technological miracles and marvels, to dystopian, where labor is replaced by software and malevolent robots. The reality is, smart machines and AI will enable all of us to do more than is humanly possible. What To Do When Machines Do Everything explains what's real, along with a powerful framework for embracing this change, to ensure you and your business stay competitive in the next decade.

There's an awkward moment at the outset of every new technology when marketers and agencies begin spasmodically craving it. This craving is often blind to whether the investment would solve a business challenge or if that money would be better spent by letting junior staffers roast marshmallows on a giant burning pyre of cocaine. To date, much of the conversation around chat bots has been focused on replacing rote customer service for existing clients and "driving loyalty," as spurious as that phrase has been shown to be by the good folks at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. So we're going to look at something different: four ways that chat bots could increase marketing effectiveness outside of giving existing customers a better experience. In short, how could chat bots be used to actually grow a brand and reach new customers?

Today the focus is on the Customer Obsession Conference. The Customer Obsession Conference, part of IRX 2017, is for retailers who want to explore new digital approaches to putting the customer at the centre of the shopping experience. Organisers of the conference, run in association with Monetate [IRDX VMOT], aim to identify and share effective ways to use content, social, search and other digital marketing tools to deliver satisfaction and results across channels. They're looking at data, journey mapping and personalisations as tools for campaigns to drive behavioural change. The conference opens with a keynote address looking at the new role of the CMO as technology and integrated IT systems become ever more important, and how the boardroom as a whole will change to adapt around new digital priorities.

Ocado, the world's largest online-only supermarket, has been evaluating the feasibility of robotic picking and packing of shopping orders in its highly-automated warehouses through the SoMa project, a Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation funded by the European Union. One of the main challenges of robotic manipulation has been the handling of easily damageable and unpredictably shaped objects such as fruit and vegetable groceries. These products have unique shapes and should be handled in a way that does not cause damage or bruising. To avoid damaging sensitive items, the project uses a compliant gripper (i.e. one that possesses spring-like properties) in conjunction with an industrial robot arm. The variation in shape of the target objects imposes another set of constraints on the design of a suitable gripper.

To stay on the leading edge in any industry, you must accept that the only thing that is constant is change. You must always be ready to analyze and adapt to take advantage of new advancements and stay ahead of the competition. We all know that, but never have I put it into practice more than as the founder and CEO of VineSleuth/Wine4.Me, where we are developing technology that allows shoppers to get the wines they want, simply, and retailers to reach those wine buyers, personally. This is made possible through artificial intelligence. In building our patented process of wine evaluation and predictive analytics, as well as our mobile applications and kiosks, we've had the opportunity to work with some of the best minds in wine, sensory science and artificial intelligence.

Over the last few years, traditional retail has stagnated with some of the world's most ubiquitous retailers shuttering their storefronts. But as total retail sales stay flat, digital retail is experiencing rapid growth with no signs of slowing in the years to come. According to a late 2016 eMarketer study, digital retail sales grew 23.7% in 2016, and sales expected to grow to a total of $4.058 trillion by 2020, making up 14.6% of total retail spending that year. As digital retail continues to grow and offer consumers new ways to shop, we worked to identify the ways retailers are planning to generate revenue and grow their business, what they are prioritizing and the challenges they expect to face. To gather these insights, we conducted a survey in January 2017 with 202 marketers, primarily representing brick-and-click retailers, ecommerce companies, and online marketplaces. We'll be unveiling this research at eTail West, where ecommerce and multi-channel leaders from all around the globe will be connecting next week.

Voice-powered artificial intelligence is not something that's easy to set up for just any business, even if it might have real benefits in terms of driving sales or improving customer experience. Voysis is a startup that wants to change that, with an AI platform that can parse natural language input, and that works effectively in specific domains including e-commerce, entertainment and more. Voysis doesn't want to be Siri or Alexa – it wants to the perfect shop assistant, or the extremely insightful video store clerk. "Voysis is a complete voice AI platform," explained Voysis founder and CEO Peter Cahill in an interview. "What I mean by that is that the platform enables companies and businesses to rapidly stand up their own artificial intelligences that can be queried by voice or text."

Retailers are pushing for more technology to enhance consumers' shopping experience, such as chatbots, virtual reality and augmented reality, but new research shows customers might not care so much about it. The report, Reality of Retail Tech shows consumers are not that psyched about new tech from retailers, especially chatbots and smart mirrors. Research for the report was conducted by mobile commerce and engagement platform, GPShopper, along with research and consulting organization YouGov. Data show there is clear disconnect between companies and shoppers over what technology people want to use. "Developments in mobile are further giving way to more advanced technology like virtual reality and chatbots, being brought into the shopping experience," said GPShopper Co-founder and CMO Maya Mikhailov in a statement.