'Event[0]' Is a Fresh Take on the AI Story Stay up-to-date on the topics you care about. We'll send you an email alert whenever a news article matches your alert term. It's free, and you can add new alerts at any time.

'Event[0]' Is a Fresh Take on the AI Story Stay up-to-date on the topics you care about. We'll send you an email alert whenever a news article matches your alert term. It's free, and you can add new alerts at any time.

AI is more present in our daily lives than many people realize. The world is on the cusp of an AI revolution. Companies around the world are already using the technology to help do everything from parse medical records to teach cars to drive themselves. At home, digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google Now, have put a conversational gloss on the burgeoning tech. In 2017, AI is likely to not only get smarter (natch) but also more humanlike.

What is interesting is how little, year on year, this list changes. Transport investment, skills schemes and relatively fiddly tax incentives feature time and again. I used to be one of those officials: I worked in HM Treasury for three years in the "Productivity Unit". Our job was to study potential investments and problematic regulation to try and spot reforms that would improve the economic output per worker. It is not surprising the Treasury is obsessed by productivity.

Over 3/4 of Marketing Leaders believe the future belongs to Artificial Intelligence. In October 2015, in my post entitled "The Future Of Sales Is AI: Are Your Sales Teams Prepared?" I shared a bold prediction from LeadGenius cofounder Anand Kulkarni: "In just 10 years most salespeoples' jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence." As I wrote then and as I believe today, sales is not going away. Salespeople are not going away.

Machine learning is promising CMOs the biggest win ever with software that takes the guesswork and gut reaction out of measuring return on investment (ROI) for corporate event sponsorships. The bad news is many CMOs won't have the skills to capture the opportunity. CMOs investing millions in event sponsorships have had fewer options to measure the actual impact on brand exposure until now. According to Forrester research, CMOs need to combine the right and left sides of their brains to engage customers, as well as master technology and analytics for personalized, context-rich experiences. Forrester predicts the demise of 30 percent of CMOS in 2017 who won't be able to bring this fairly unique combination of skills into their marketing practice.

Artificial intelligence and smartphones are being trialled to stamp out malaria in remote parts of the Philippines. Technology originally developed for marketers to find Nike ticks and Adidas three-stripes on Instagram has been repurposed to detect the disease in blood samples. A person with no medical training could take a picture of a blood sample with their smartphone, and immediately know whether malaria is present or not. 'If this works, it could be trailblazing, said Marvi Rebueno Trudeau, head of the public-private partnership, including the Shell Foundation and the Global Fund, that is testing the technology. 'The way we're doing it right now, the microscopers collect the blood, make a slide, put it in the microscope.

In fact, 80 percent of businesses reported already incorporating or planning on adding chatbots by the year 2020. That's according to a study pulled together by Oracle, surveying more than 800 decision makers at companies in France, the Netherlands, South Africa and the U.K. Most were in the C-suite -- chief strategy officers and marketing officers; others were senior sales and marketing executives. They were asked about emerging technologies and whether they've already employed them or are interested in moving in a certain direction. In general, the survey found that these leaders are turning to focus on automation-related technologies, specifically implementing chatbots to enhance or fix issues around sales, marketing and customer service. Speaking of customer service, more than 40 percent of those executives said they think automation will improve that experience over the short and long haul.

While robots and computers will probably never completely replace doctors and nurses, machine learning/deep learning and AI are transforming the healthcare industry, improving outcomes, and changing the way doctors think about providing care. Machine learning is improving diagnostics, predicting outcomes, and just beginning to scratch the surface of personalized care. Lumiata has developed predictive analytics tools that can discover accurate insights and make predictions related to symptoms, diagnoses, procedures, and medications for individual patients or patient groups. The Care Trio team has developed a three-pronged approach that helps doctors devise and understand the best care protocols for cancer patients.