London, March 15: Sixty-eight per cent of organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) for IT functions, but 70 per cent believe AIs greatest impact by 2020 will be in marketing, customer service, finance and HR, a new study said on Wednesday. According to global IT consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), organisations with the greatest financial improvements from AI investments expect three times as many new AI-related roles by 2020 as compared to companies with smallest improvements. "Given the increasing digital disruption across every industry and the public sector, AI should become a key and integrated component of an organisation's strategy," said K Ananth Krishnan, Chief Technology Officer of TCS, in a statement. Eighty-four per cent of companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50 per cent seeing the technology as "transformative". Financial investments in AI are set to rise, as seven per cent of companies each earmarked at least $250 million toward AI in 2016 and two per cent already plan to invest more than $1 billion by 2020, likely looking to gain a competitive advantage as early adopters, the findings showed.

LONDON MUMBAI, March 15, 2017: Tata Consultancy Services (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today unveiled its Global Trend Study titled, "Getting Smarter by the Day: How AI is Elevating the Performance of Global Companies." Focused on the current and future impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the study polled 835 executives across 13 global industry sectors in four regions of the world, finding that 84% of companies see the use of AI as "essential" to competitiveness, with a further 50% seeing the technology as "transformative." Exploring the views and actions of decision makers from global companies with average revenues of $20 billion, the study revealed AI is spreading across almost all areas of a company. The biggest adopters of AI today are, not surprisingly, IT departments, with two-thirds (67%) of survey respondents using AI to detect security intrusions, user issues and deliver automation. However, by 2020, almost a third (32%) of companies believe AI's greatest impact will be in sales, marketing or customer service, while one in five (20%) see AI's impact being largest in non-customer facing corporate functions, including finance, strategic planning, corporate development, and HR.

A new press release reports, "Intel Corporation and Mobileye N.V. today announced a definitive agreement under which Intel would acquire Mobileye, a global leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. Pursuant to the agreement, a subsidiary of Intel will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash, representing an equity value of approximately $15.3 billion and an enterprise value of $14.7 billion." The release continues, "The combination is expected to accelerate innovation for the automotive industry and position Intel as a leading technology provider in the fast-growing market for highly and fully autonomous vehicles. Intel estimates the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunity to be up to $70 billion by 2030. This transaction extends Intel's strategy to invest in data-intensive market opportunities that build on the company's strengths in computing and connectivity from the cloud, through the network, to the device."

A key area of AI intervention in logistical operations involves adaptive scheduling of deliveries and routing of vehicles. Advanced logistics and supply chains are being created using expert decision systems. Products can be transported more efficiently through vision-based driver assist and automated/robotic systems. This has made transportation less susceptible to disruptions caused by weather, traffic and unnatural events. Some of the major areas of application of AI in the banking and financial services sector include early detection of financial risk and systemic failures, and automation to reduce malicious intent in financial systems, such as market manipulation, fraud, anomalous trading and reduction in market volatility and trading costs.

BenevolentBio's CMO, Dr Patrick Keohane, says the industry is on the cusp of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution… Medical research is entering a period of rapid transformation, driven by the explosion of scientific data, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), and the development of extremely powerful computers. This convergence enables researchers to access enormous and diverse datasets to rapidly form and test scientific hypotheses. It is disrupting the way we identify, validate, and transform scientific concepts into potential Healthcare solutions – ultimately revolutionising the scientific process. AI enables access and the more effective use of existing information for the discovery and development of better drugs at a speed previously unimagined. This is helping to meet the high demand from society to provide better medicines at a reasonable cost, but also influencing how we are looking to treat rarer forms of disease.

In May 2017 at ICMI Expo Shep will share some of the 52 "Amazement Tools" featured in his book of the same name. Learn best practices, tactics, and strategies to help them deliver the most amazing customer service on the planet. Over the years, I have watched artificial intelligence swiftly move from a thing of the future to a practical element in the improvement of contact center operations. With the contact center remaining a vital component of customer acquisition and retention, it seems obvious that continual advancements are key in boosting the success of businesses worldwide. When it comes to improving the contact center experience for improved client acquisition and retention, intelligent network interfaces are beyond compare.

A Japanese company has created an unusual new service that lets customers book fake friends to pose with them in photos intended for social media, according to reports. Real Appeal was created by Family Romance as a means for Facebook and Instagram users to appear more popular online than they actually might be. Customers can choose one or more fake friends from a photo catalogue, according to RocketNews24, and can specify certain characteristics, such as gender, age and fashion sense. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

When Judy Norman walks on stage for the play'Spillikin', she performs beside a somewhat different cast member - a humanoid robot. The robot can talk, make facial expressions, blink its eyes, move its hand and turn its head. It has even been described as'affectionate' by leading lady Norman, who works closely with the robot throughout the performance. When Judy Norman (right) walks on stage for the play'Spillikin', she performs beside a somewhat different cast member - a humanoid robot (left). RoboThespian is the creation of Cornish engineer Will Jackson who had an idea to develop an artistic robot that could react with its audiences. Six years ago he embarked on a project to create a robot that would save tour guides from tediously repeating the same script each day.

"Machine learning is really not dark magic, it's just another tool." As the leading professor involved in the development of Google Brain, and Google's Director of Augmented Intelligence Research, he worked on their release of their open-source library for machine learning, Tensorflow. "Our main hurdle is to get people educated on how this works in practice." He shared that practical advice last week at TQ in Amsterdam (disclaimer: TQ is part of TNW), alongside three startups that each have their own hands-on experience with machine learning as well. For years now, the decreasing costs of computation power and data storage have gone hand in hand with the explosive birth of tech startups.

Artificial intelligence is already transforming everything from medicine to music. Manuela Saragosa speaks to three pioneers of this latest industrial revolution and asks what will be left for us humans to do? Professor Geoffrey Hinton, a father of AI, explains how neural networks revolutionised Google's translation services, and why we might one day be able to recreate consciousness in silicon. Ron Gutman of online medical service provider HealthTap introduces Manuela to the latest physician to join their team - Doctor AI. And Ed Newton-Rex, co-founder of music start-up Jukedeck, takes her through his playlist - which was entirely composed by his computer.