We are bombarded with healthcare mandates aimed at bettering care by eliminating waste and improving health. But these initiatives typically focus on revenue-based penalties that stop payment to providers. They don't get to the root of the problem - patient illness. The RIGHT way to improve the health of individual patients and our communities is to stop illness before it happens. We use advanced artificial intelligence and the latest in Clinical Patient Pod technology to predict events so that providers can stop losses before they happen.

We've put a lot of time and research into distilling the complex problem of training an AI model to understand new concepts into an easy-to-use product that is orders of magnitude faster and easier than traditional methods. Now, instead of requiring 1) a team of data scientists, 2) special infrastructure, 3) tons of code, 4) thousands of data examples per concept, and 5) weeks of training, Custom Training allows anyone to "teach" AI a new concept in a matter of seconds using less than ten data examples. With Custom Training, we make it easier and faster for companies and developers to make AI work for them. Not only that, by putting the power to "teach" AI in the hands of everyone in the world, we're helping AI learn to be more diverse and unbiased, understanding the world from different and more nuanced perspectives. But, Custom Training is just one piece of the puzzle. Another piece is our new Visual Search product.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai thinks we are now living in an "artificial intelligence-first world." Artificial intelligence is all the rage in Silicon Valley these days, as technology companies race to build the first killer app that utilizes machine learning and image recognition. Today, Google announced an AI-powered assistant built into its new Pixel phones. But there's a pivotal downside to the company's latest creation: Because of the very nature of artificial intelligence, our data is less secure than ever before, and technology companies are now collecting even more personal information about each one of us. Google's new assistant, which debuted in the company's new messaging app Allo, works like this: Simply ask the assistant a question about the weather, nearby restaurants, or for directions, and it responds with detailed information right there in the chat interface. It is undoubtedly neat and useful.

Brilliant minds like Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Nicola Tesla, and of course Albert Einstein are equally known for the application of knowledge to problem solving. While we doubt we'll be winning a Nobel Prize any time soon, we're pleased to announce that Email Studio now includes artificial intelligence (AI) powered by Salesforce Einstein. Einstein combines machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, smart discovery, and predictive analytics to help our customers get smarter and more predictive about their customers. Admittedly, the idea of adding AI to your email program may seem a little like science fiction, but in reality it's something you can do today. Machine learning is a lot more common than we may realize.

Google may have finally taken control of its hardware with the new Pixel phones, but the company's still focusing on software. The AI-powered Assistant is an integral part of its new phones, Allo messaging app and smart speaker, making for a more uniform and useful experience across all of Google's (and other brands') devices. If that sounds familiar, it's because Apple brought Siri to multiple platforms first. Assistant brings voice control to the new Google Home smart speaker, in addition to the new Pixels, and lets you control your Chromecast playback with your voice. The goal, said the company's CEO Sundar Pichai, is to make Assistant "universally available."

Salesforce partners headed to the Dreamforce mega-conference taking place this week in San Francisco are eagerly awaiting their introduction to Einstein, a broad set of artificial intelligence capabilities that will be infused into almost all of the CRM leader's products. Dreamforce will be Einstein's coming-out party after months of Salesforce teasing an array of cognitive capabilities, such as machine learning and deep learning, that assist users in developing and maintaining relationships with their customers. The AI technology will be offered as native enhancements to apps like the Sales, Service, Marketing, IoT and Analytics clouds, as well as a stand-alone development platform partners can leverage to customize intelligent solutions. As is often the case with the introduction of cutting-edge technologies into established product lines, however, it will be incumbent on the channel to figure out how to monetize Einstein by putting it in the hands of customers. "Ideally, we'll be able to create entirely new enhancements to sales, service and marketing processes using Einstein as a toolset that ultimately drives better user decision-making," Glenn Weinstein, CIO of Indianapolis-based Salesforce partner Appirio, told CRN.

After a several-month trial in which staff used the AI internally, while they dealt with business clients, RBS will let Luvo talk directly to the outside world by the end of 2016. Luvo functions as a chatbot – a program that opens when you access the bank's website – that you can ask typical customer service questions, concerning lost PINs and credit cards that need to be replaced. At first glance, this is nothing extraordinary, and chatbots have become a frequent feature for websites dealing with a large flow of individual queries. But RBS and IBM, which spent millions developing the program together, say that it is revolutionary, with a nuanced understanding of human speech, a "unique" personality, and an ability to learn on the job. "To be helpful it has to understand dialogue," the bank's managing director of digitization, Chris Popple, explained in a presentation earlier this year.

When commercial-scale crops in First World countries get diseases, lab-equipped experts are typically called in to identify the affliction and advise treatment. Such resources aren't always available to smallhold farmers in developing nations, however, who may lose entire crops without ever knowing what was wrong with them. That's why scientists are now creating software that could be incorporated into an app that identifies crop diseases, based on user-supplied smartphone photos.

What are the best practices for creating artificial intelligence? It's a question posed by the "partnership on AI" formed by major American technology firms. The goal of the partnership, which includes Google, IBM, Microsoft and Facebook, is to "conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license (sic) in areas such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology." Now, a clarification of terms: AI and robots are different. I should know: I wrote a series of novels about self-replicating humanoid robots.