If there was any doubt that AI has officially arrived in the world of enterprise software, Salesforce just put it to rest. The CRM giant on Sunday announced Einstein, a set of artificial intelligence capabilities it says will help users of its platform serve their customers better. AI's potential to augment human capabilities has already been proven in multiple areas, but tapping it for a specific business purpose isn't always straightforward. "AI is out of reach for the vast majority of companies because it's really hard," John Ball, general manager for Salesforce Einstein, said in a press conference last week. With Einstein, Salesforce aims to change all that.

The nature of outreach has changed dramatically in recent years for many nonprofits, with the digital age and the rise of social media meaning that it now takes place primarily online. This opens up a wealth of new opportunities, and looking at the data can help decision makers in nonprofits identify how best to exploit these. Nonprofits can analyze the unstructured data from their Twitter and Facebook feeds to determine how best to approach a fundraising campaign, determine user sentiment, and pinpoint how it could be made more effective. This is done using natural language processing (NLP), a technology that derives understanding from unstructured data such as written text, to determine the ways users are currently posting about issues related to your cause to help create a campaign they will respond to and target them based on demographics. Sentiment analysis can then ensure that the campaign is having an impact, looking at metrics such as likes and shares, as well as using NLP again to see how people are responding in their tweets and updates.

The London borough of Enfield has enlisted artificial intelligence Amelia to take on customer service tasks for its residents starting late this year. Developed by IPSoft, Amelia is a cognitive agent, capable of automating certain tasks as well as learn from its interactions. As to what makes Amelia a competent asset to the council, IPSoft says she is "[c]apable of analysing natural language, she understands context, applies logic, learns, resolves problems and even senses emotions." Amelia currently handles cognitive customer experience for professional services company Accenture and financial consultancy firm Deloitte. This will, however, be her first public sector role.

Microsoft is hoping to boost the accessibility of machine learning technology with a new predictive analytics cloud service, Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. The service is part of a movement that includes a new breed of business intelligence vendor that aims to help businesses take advantage of the increasing volume of data they collect. The new service is one of several machine learning technologies that have emerged in the past few years. It shows the need to manage data and the predictive analytics technologies that are increasingly required to analyze complex data structures. Microsoft said it built the new service using technologies that it developed for other products like Xbox and Bing.

Google today said that it's acquired API.ai, a startup with tools for speech recognition and natural language understanding. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. In addition to its developers tools, Api.ai offers a conversational assistant app with more than 20 million users. Google did not disclose its plans for integrating the startup's technology. That will be important, as Google already has tools for natural language understanding and speech recognition, and it has unveiled a Google Assistant that will be available through text messaging interface and the Google Home smart speaker.

The report investigates eight areas of human activity in which AI technologies are already beginning to affect urban life, in ways that will become increasingly pervasive and profound by 2030. The 28,000-word study includes a glossary to help non-technical readers understand new AI applications – such as how computer vision might help screen tissue samples for cancers, for example, or how natural language processing will enable computers to grasp not simply the literal definitions, but the connotations and intent, behind words.

With their latest announcement, the CRM giant, Salesforce, continues to do what Salesforce does best. And we don't just mean supplying and powering one of the most robust CRM platforms, but rather forward thinking and innovation. Salesforce has a history of jumping on industry trends as they emerge, and this year is no different with the introduction of Salesforce Einstein – or as Salesforce optimistically puts it, Artificial Intelligence for everyone. Many of us will agree that Artificial Intelligence will be the next big thing for tech. With machine learning, there's no shortage of possible use cases and improvements that can be made in almost any industry.

But the upcoming innovation in chat is about being more human, not less. With the proliferation of adequate speech recognition, AI assistants, and wireless headphones, the tech is ready to unlock the potential of our most basic form of communication. Soon, we'll talk and listen to our messaging apps when it's more convenient than typing or reading. The age of voice is about to arrive. When we've got our hands full.

The launch of Google's app called Google Trips is, on the surface, just another travel app helping you organize your trip. But, really this is not what it is at all. Google's universe, these days, is being powered by machine learning algorithms everywhere. Being what we can best imagine as localized artificial intelligence programs they also inform each other and sync seamlessly from different regions of the Googleverse to provide a seamless experience. So Gmail (AI enhanced, these days), talks to Google Maps and Google Search, Google Now and even Chrome to better understand what the end user is doing it provides a helpful AI assistant in the guise of an app that aims to take the stress away from working out the details of travel so that you can focus instead on what is truly important: the content of your trip.

Much ink has been spilled on the subject of how the jobs market is being impacted by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. The well-known study by economists Frey and Osborne published in 2013, which predicts that 47% of all currently existing jobs in the United States will come under threat over the next twenty years, is regularly brought out of the cupboard as a terrifying spectre. Other far more optimistic studies, based on longer time-frames, have delivered a riposte to this – largely unfounded – scaremongering, which has in fact been repeated many times over throughout our history. However, the potential impact of AI on general education and vocational skills training – two means of preparing people for the labour market – is still being largely disregarded. The model whereby you learn during the first half of your life and spend the remaining years applying what you have learned in the world of work has held up pretty well.