Earlier this year, Andreessen Horowitz investor Chris Dixon noted that how challenging it's become for investors to help groom promising AI startups, given how quickly Facebook, Google, and Amazon are bringing aboard related talent. Dixon noted, for example, that Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup that built voice-activated interfaces that Facebook bought and which now powers its Messenger platform, was only in Andreessen Horowitz's portfolio for a few months when Facebook bought it. But firm co-founder Marc Andreessen said on stage at Disrupt today that the firm is beginning to see things swing in the opposite direction. "Two years ago, it seemed like four or five companies were hoovering up all the talent . . . I think something like 1,500 people over four years [were involved in] building Alexa," the technology that powers Amazon's voice-controlled home computer Echo.

BEIJING – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earned unusual praise from Chinese netizens Wednesday -- but for the quality of his calligraphy, rather than his diplomacy. Beijing and Tokyo are at loggerheads over disputed islands and wartime history, and Abe has raised hackles with his criticism of his neighbor's assertiveness in the South China Sea. But the Japanese leader was lauded after he purportedly left a hand-written note in Chinese thanking a cleaner at the hotel he stayed in for the G-20 summit in Hangzhou last week. It gave Abe's name, title and the date, adding: "Thanks." It was posted on China's Twitter-like Weibo last week by a journalist who founded what is said to be Japan's largest Chinese-language news website, and had been reposted more than 700 times by Wednesday.

The technologies defining the'Fourth Industrial Revolution', or Industry 4.0, are being powered by cloud infrastructures. The Oracle report, Cloud: Opening up the Road to Industry 4.0 has found that from robotics to artificial intelligence, businesses view the cloud as a blank canvas upon which to build their innovation strategies. The research investigated how companies in EMEA are managing the transition to Industry 4.0 and sheds light on which technologies they are investing in to continue succeeding in the data-driven age. Most companies also recognise a cloud infrastructure is required to bring these technologies to life – 60% believe an enterprise cloud platform provides the opportunity for organisations to capitalise on innovation such as robotics and artificial intelligence. Encouragingly, a large majority of businesses are on course with their plans to establish a single integrated cloud model across their organisation.

The typical HR function has gone much transformation. This is due to the more involved role that HR plays within the organization, including molding the organization to be in step with the overall business and helping achieve the strategic objectives of the entire organization. Various steps have helped HR undergo transformation. For example, portions of HR services, such as payroll, recruitment, learning, and benefits administration, have been given to specialist external providers to deliver. Also, attempts to keep step with consumer-centric industries has upgraded HR services with employee-focused features such as digital and mobile employee self-service channels.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Facebook's efforts to get users, developers, and clients excited about chatbots appear to have paid off. Despite only being launched in April during Facebook's F8 developer conference, there are now more than 30,000 bots on the Messenger Platform, up from 11,000 in July. However, this hype could be hurting adoption and use of the technology.

New robot-style tech is designed to "think like a lawyer" Uber-traditional magic circle outfit Slaughter and May has become the latest firm to put pen to paper on a deal that will see it use artificial intelligence (AI). The system (or cool robot as Legal Cheek likes to think of it) is called Luminance, and has been created by a team of lawyers and mathematicians. Thanks to financial backing from Invoke Capital -- a technology investment fund -- and research and development courtesy of the University of Cambridge, Luminance will, according to its creators, "transform the legal due diligence process." Luminance, which appears to be some sort of super legal mind, will be able to read (and understand) hundreds of pages of complex legal documentation every minute. According to Luminance's CEO, Emily Foges, the AI system will be "trained to think like a lawyer."

The sale of artificial intelligence-based platforms to business started off as a multi-million dollar pitch targeted toward the CEO, according to Nova Spivack, the founder and CEO of Bottlenose. The Los Angeles-based startup is looking to automate the application of AI to business intelligence, as well as much of the work of data scientists, currently in scarce supply. That should lower the price, a lot. In recent years, AI-driven applications have been targeted toward the CIO. In the future, Mr. Spivack says, they well may be sold directly to business leaders, and the price will drop to thousands or even hundreds of dollars per user, he told CIO Journal.

Baidu Inc. has established an early stage investment unit named Baidu Venture to back artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality projects. The fund will initially seek to raise US 200 million in capital for the effort. Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, will lead the venture unit as chairman and participate in project evaluation and investment decisions, Chinese media reported. The new venture unit will be independently run from Baidu's existing investment teams, allowing it to make fast decisions without having to go through complicated internal approval process. Baidu established a deep learning research institute as early as 2013, making artificial intelligence a key strategic focuse to shape the company's future.

San Francisco, CA -- September 14, 2016 -- Absolutdata, a leading data analytics firm, today announced the release of its groundbreaking NAVIK SalesAI solution, an add-on tool designed to work seamlessly with popular CRM platforms. NAVIK SalesAI is proven to increase sales by providing predictive data on buyers, identifying the most promising prospects and aligning purchaser needs with products and communication channels. Data driven recommendations help sales professionals close more deals more quickly by providing a customized weekly game plan of prioritized leads and actions. "We tested NAVIK SalesAI in a pilot program with a Fortune 500 industrial products company, and the results were incredible," said Dr. Anil Kaul, CEO of Absolutdata. "Using an A/B approach, we found that a group comprising 50 salespeople in six territories that used NAVIK SalesAI experienced a 4% sales uptick within just seven weeks. NAVIK SalesAI identifies more intelligent pathways to the sale, adding science to the art of selling."

Georgia's voter-registration process violates the Voting Rights Act and has prevented tens of thousands of residents, mostly minorities, from registering to vote, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday. Under a policy implemented in 2010, people aren't added to the voter rolls if identifying information on their applications doesn't exactly match information in databases maintained by the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration, the lawsuit says. "What Georgia is doing is denying people the ability to make it onto the registration rolls at the outset, which is what's so problematic about this matching program," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The organization said it filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Gainesville, in north Georgia, along with other legal organizations on behalf of a coalition of civil rights groups. It's no secret that partisan state legislators, once in power, frequently try to alter voting laws to give their party an advantage.