Artificial intelligence, machine intelligence, cognitive computing -- whatever you want to call machines that are capable of understanding and acting upon their environment -- is no longer solely the purview of highly credentialed lab directors and deep-thinking computer scientists. It has entered mainstream consciousness, and the public expects IT to play a leadership role as machine learning enters our workplaces, our living spaces and our lives. Chances are that you are not. Most executives, in the opinion of New York Times technology columnist John Markoff, are "ill prepared for this new world in the making." People have been thinking about automated work forever.

Accenture have announced a partnership with IPsoft, the creators of the cognitive agent Amelia. The two firms will collaborate to create the first Accenture Amelia practice, designed to accelerate client adoption of artificial intelligence to improve business outcomes and create new growth opportunities for their businesses. Accenture will utilize IPsoft's Amelia platform to develop go-to-market strategies, solutions and consulting service offerings around deployments of virtual agent technology for clients across several industries with initial focus on banking, insurance and travel. "Artificial intelligence is maturing rapidly and offers great potential to reshape the way that organizations conduct business and interact with their customers and employees. At the same time, executives are overwhelmed by the plethora of technologies and many products that are advertising AI or Cognitive capabilities," said Paul Daugherty, Accenture's chief technology officer.

Today, a few hundred Bay Area Facebook users will open their Messenger apps to discover M, a new virtual assistant. Facebook will prompt them to test it with examples of what M can do: Make restaurant reservations. Find a birthday gift for your spouse. It won't take long for Messenger's users to realize M can accomplish much more than your standard digital helper, suspects David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook. "It can perform tasks that none of the others can," Marcus says.

We just finished Barclays Accelerator London, the world's leading fintech accelerator programme powered by Techstars. It was such an honour to share what Seldon has been building at Demo Day on 18th April 2016. Pitching to a 1000-strong audience at the O2 was a fitting finale to an incredible 13-week Techstars programme -- we all learned so much, connected with hundreds of great people, and established a new market for Seldon in the finance sector. We were delighted to announce a project with Barclaycard to help identify customers that default after receiving credit increases. This could not only save millions in missed payments, but would also result in fewer customers in financial difficulty.

The Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Algorithm Cheat Sheet helps you choose the right machine learning algorithm for your predictive analytics solutions from the Microsoft Azure Machine Learning library of algorithms. Azure Machine Learning Studio comes with a large number of machine learning algorithms for your predictive analytics solutions. These algorithms fall into the general machine learning categories of regression, classification, clustering, and anomaly detection, and each one is designed to address a different type of machine learning problem. See the article How to choose algorithms for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning for a detailed guide to using this cheat sheet. Download the Machine Learning Algorithm Cheat Sheet and get help figuring out how to choose a machine learning algorithm for your solution.

In Little Britain, the world-weary character Carol Beer responds to all customer enquiries by clacking into her PC keyboard, glancing at the results shown on screen, and nasally intoning: "Computer says, 'no'". It does however severely underplay the current real-world situation. In reality the computer often says'no' these days without any need for a Carol Beer to input data or to even speak to the customer. Small computer programmes are used to cut out the middle-human. The chances are that if you were to apply for a loan or a credit card online today, behind the scenes a computer is working its way through an algorithm, whirring away in a split-second to decide whether your application will be successful by classifying you as'low risk' (computer says, 'yes') or as'high risk' (computer says, 'no').

An "artificial-intelligence attorney" created using technology from IBM's Watson has snagged its first customer, but that doesn't mean it'll be appearing in the courtroom anytime soon. Law firm Baker & Hostetler said this week that it will use the "AI lawyer" ROSS as a resource for the 50 lawyers in its bankruptcy division, which has helped advise proceedings related to the Bernie Madoff case. Essentially, ROSS is an advanced a research tool. It reads and draws inferences from existing laws to answer questions about specific cases or guidelines that users can ask using natural language. Its machine-learning capabilities allow it to continue improving its answers, and the system can also help keep lawyers up-to-date about new rulings.

Australian managing partner of Pinsent Masons David Rennick said its new matter management system called Turn Frame was the beginnings of artificial intelligence and was enabling lawyers to provide more consistent, accurate and quicker outcomes. "We are embracing the predictions of'robo-lawyers' in the industry and developing artificial intelligence products in direct response to the challenge," he Rennick said. The system could disaggregate large matters and import details, issues and documentation from its knowledge bank to help prepare different aspects of the current case. It had used the system for around 8000 files so far in contract risk reviews, project management of large matters, disputes and property.

Man Group is changing the focus of an Oxford University department it funds to machine learning. Investors have been urged to reject its pay plans later this month. City Talk: Barratt Developments sees strong market, Compass profit rises, Experian plans share buyback. Bank league tables can be a surprisingly thorny issue. Cut the right way, anyone can be number one.

When it comes to law, and legal review, we want an attorney's hands on, or at least near the wheel at all times. Our Hybrid Multimodal approach includes an autopilot mode using active machine learning, but our attorneys are always responsible. They may allow the programmed AI to take over in some situations, and go hands free, much like autonomous parallel parking or highway driving, but they always control the journey.