Frustrated with the impact of technology advances on infrastructure upgrades and IT budgets, a growing number of organizations are opting for cloud computing investments instead.

SAP's vision is to help the world run better and improve people's lives. As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is a market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and industries run better. SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. SAP applications and services enable our customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. At SAP, we believe in the power of collaboration and empower our employees to perform at their best in an environment that encourages free and open expression of ideas.

Nowadays, it is quite clear that Chatbots are much more than just a trend. More and more companies offer a chatbot as part of their variety of interfaces. However, as chatbots become a common practice, the need for smarter bots arises. Smart bots can do much more than the simple chatbots. Powered by advanced machine learning capabilities, such as image analysis, NLP and text analytics, these smart bots can understand concepts in a sentence, identify objects within an image and extract entities and sentiment in a given text.

"The industry will continue to focus on refining systems, applications, software, security and network infrastructure to meet their needs. Machine learning is the megatrend: its application and influence, particularly on our mobiles, will be improving all parts of our lives in 2017," he said. So begins Deloitte's annual global TMT (Technology, Media, and Telecommunications) report, that since its inception in 2001 has reached an 87% prediction accuracy rate. The report is long but makes for interesting reading. Deloitte Australia forecasts a year that will see further significant breakthroughs in machine learning, indoor GPS navigation, safer travel in motor cars, more cyber mischief and a growing use of biometric security.

But DevOps, which refers to the increased communication and collaboration between development and IT operations, is an ever-changing, sometimes complicated term. While "dev" and "ops" used to be siloed into separate philosophies, practices, tools, and work flows, they're merging into one. Though the basics aren't exactly new, the DevOps world is still trying to figure out how it will evolve and integrate into already established infrastructures. Whether you head a company that relies heavily on DevOps or you're just now dipping your toes into the DevOps pond, there's plenty to learn--because this movement and culture are anything but set in stone. To get a better feel for what's in store for DevOps in 2017, we reached out to the pros. Read on for challenges and changes you may encounter in the coming year. How has DevOps changed the IT landscape in the last few years? There are increasing signs of improved collaboration between Dev and Ops teams to work on a shared goal, which is the continuous delivery of high-quality applications to customers, employees, and partners.

With China making rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI)-based research, it is imperative that India view AI as a critical element of its national security strategy, recommends an August 2016 report titled India and the Artificial Intelligence Revolution. Thanks to the increasingly digital economy, fuelled by improving education and globalization, the Indian consumer is unknowingly the country's biggest beneficiary of recent advances in AI, notes the report. From utilizing various applications powered by AI to using a range of online services such as Amazon Marketplace and Netflix that learn from consumers' online behaviour to make intelligent product and service recommendations, consumers are readily engaged with the proliferation of AI in India, whether they appreciate it or not. Indian academics, public researchers, labs, and entrepreneurs face a different challenge than the corporations that dominate the space--the infrastructure necessary for an AI revolution in India has been neglected by policymakers. While lack of physical infrastructure is certainly a major impediment, India's AI development also suffers from the paucity of the necessary cultural infrastructure, which is key for recent advances from lab to marketplace in AI.

Businesses expect AI to boost revenues by 39 percent in 2020. Will artificial intelligence deliver on its bold promise for businesses? Artificial intelligence is already profitable for many companies, and they expect more profits from AI in the years ahead, according to a recent report from Infosys. The report, titled "Amplifying Human Potential: Towards Purposeful Artificial Intelligence" polled 1,600 senior decision makers from large businesses all over the world. The companies surveyed invested an average of $6.7 million in AI in the past 12 months and have been actively using AI for an average of 24 months.

It seems as if you can't pull up a website on data these days without running into the term Artificial Intelligence. And with good reason: Markets and Markets has it pegged as reaching $16 billion by 2022. Wander around the Web and you can hit on stories about everything from the top AI stocks to buy to what universities are offering MBA courses on managing Artificial Intelligence applications and algorithms. There's more action afoot to help developers deal with the surging AI trend, too. Amazon, for example, recently announced new self-service tools to help the development community more easily build Artificial Intelligence capabilities into apps, and Google has a new AI unit that has democratizing AI as part of its mission. Artificial Intelligence is new terrain for many developers, and getting on board in some way, shape or form must be appealing when they hear about the latest moves in the space, including how they're targeting expert talent in the area in a significant way.

For most people, the sound of wedding bells evokes happiness. Whether you're remembering the time you tied the knot with your significant other or finally jumping the broom, weddings are always a joyful celebration. But if you've already gone through the process, or are going through it now, you know just how untrue that emotion is when you're in the planning process. While I haven't had the pleasure of marrying my fiancé yet, I have had the pleasure of being a Maid of Honor quite a few times and am currently in the planning phases with my sister for her wedding – so I speak from experience when I say it's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows. Working with a budget, getting guest lists, picking venues and vendors is no easy task.

The Trump administration's controversial attempt to declare its recent presidential inauguration as having "the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period," has inadvertently highlighted the fact that counting crowds remains a painstaking and inexact science. But the rise of artificial intelligence could soon spare crowd scientists the task of manually counting heads. An early glimpse of how artificial intelligence (AI) could help count crowds appeared in 2013. University of Central Florida researchers showed how computer software based on machine learning can swiftly provide automated headcount estimates for crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Such AI tools still have room for improvement in terms of achieving accurate headcounts based on images.