Understanding how different factors affect the supply chain remains a top priority for research firms around the globe. This unwavering drive represents the continued interest in advancing today's capabilities with state-of-the-art technology and adaptability. From artificial intelligence to refocusing on procurement, the state of supply chain continued to explode throughout 2016, and you need to understand why. Artificial intelligence (AI) is among the most well-recognized ideas in science fiction. However, it's true applications are becoming more apparent daily.

Many people are unsure about exactly what machine learning is. But the reality is that it is already part of everyday life. A form of artificial intelligence, it allows computers to learn from examples rather than having to follow step-by-step instructions. The Royal Society believes it will have an increasing impact on people's lives and is calling for more research, to ensure the UK makes the most of opportunities. Machine learning is already powering systems from the seemingly mundane to the life-changing.

A form of artificial intelligence, it allows computers to learn from examples rather than having to follow step-by-step instructions. The Royal Society believes it will have an increasing impact on people's lives and is calling for more research, to ensure the UK makes the most of opportunities. Machine learning is already powering systems from the seemingly mundane to the life-changing. Here are just a few examples. Using spoken commands to ask your phone to carry out a search, or make a call, relies on technology supported by machine learning.

Recently I watched a 15-second Burger King commercial, which was designed to trigger my voice-activated Google devices. In the ad, a Burger King employee, standing behind a counter at the restaurant, stared into my screen and told me that he didn't have enough time to explain all the "fresh ingredients in the Whopper sandwich." He glanced to the side, suggesting that he was about to let me in on a little secret. Then the camera zoomed in, and in a clear, crisp voice he said, "O.K. Google. What is the Whopper burger?" The video cut to black just as my phone, watch, and Google Home responded to the trigger, reading the first few lines of a Wikipedia entry about the Whopper in an unsynchronized mess of sound.

Last year, Microsoft released an artificially intelligent Twitter chatbot named "Tay" aimed at engaging Millennials online. The idea was that Tay would spend some time interacting with users, absorb relevant topics and opinions, and then produce its own content. In less than 24 hours, Tay went from tweeting "humans are super cool" to racist, neo-Nazi one-liners, such as: "I f-- hate n--, I wish we could put them all in a concentration camp with kikes and be done with the lot." Needless to say, Microsoft shut down Tay and issued an apology. We need to hold the companies who make our AI-enabled devices accountable to a standard of ethics.

Driving long distances (or using New York City's subway system) used to be a much more complicated affair, generally requiring maps, a sense of direction, some luck and the occasional stop to ask questions of strangers. Turn-by-turn navigation apps have changed all that: You may still take a wrong turn along the way, but the apps usually get you back on track with little fuss. Self-service integration specialist SnapLogic is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help its customers achieve that sort of turn-by-turn navigation when it comes to enterprise integration. Citing GPS navigation and digital home assistants like Amazon's Alexa, SnapLogic Founder and CEO Gaurav Dhillon says the company's new technology, Iris, will eliminate the integration backlog that stifles so many technology initiatives through the use of AI to automate highly repetitive, low-level development tasks. "Companies can't innovate and transform their businesses if they're bogged down in rote, repetitive tasks that don't do much for the organization," Doug Henschen, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research, said in a statement last week.

Artificial intelligence and other technologies will cause people "more pain than happiness" over the next three decades, according to Jack Ma, the billionaire chairman and founder of Alibaba. "Social conflicts in the next three decades will have an impact on all sorts of industries and walks of life," said Ma, speaking at an entrepreneurship conference in China about the job disruptions that would be created by automation and the internet. A key social conflict will be the rise of artificial intelligence and longer life expectancy, which will lead to an aging workforce fighting for fewer jobs. Ma, who is usually more optimistic in his presentations, issued the warning to encourage businesses to adapt or face problems in the future. He said that 15 years ago he gave hundreds of speeches warning about the impact of e-commerce on traditional retailers and few people listened because he wasn't as well-known as he is now.

So, I'm struggling a bit with the idea of applying machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to everything around me. Google recently gave me a Google Home device; I'm not quite sure why. Maybe they wanted to give it more real world voice recognition training opportunities. Maybe they wanted me to write about it, as good social marketing. Maybe they wanted to hear how I'm advising their competitors, naughty, naughty. It's something that I feel a natural affinity for anyway, having spent some time at a "smart home" startup a decade ago, which we'd now label "IoT" technology.

Spotify, the most popular music streaming service, might be getting ready to jump into the hardware game -- if a few job postings are to be believed. The company recently posted a handful of openings that make clear references to designing and selling hardware direct to Spotify users. A posting for a senior hardware product manager says that the eventual hire would work on an initiative to "deliver hardware directly from Spotify to existing and new customers." It also indicates that the hardware would be "a category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles." Spotify indicates that this would be a "fully-connected" hardware device; the senior product manager would define both the internet-connected hardware requirements as well as its software.

ContentWise, the personalization, discovery, analytics and metadata expert, today announced that Cablevisión Argentina (CVA) has successfully deployed the ContentWise personalization system in Cablevisión Flow, its new suite of multiscreen television services as part of its drive to provide new, next-generation services to its customers. ContentWise has been selected as part of a new, best-of-breed video platform, which includes the Minerva 10 multiscreen TV platform by Minerva Networks. The Contentwise Personalization system anticipates user s actions and facilitates discovery by sorting content based on user s taste as well as showing trending titles popular with other subscribers with similar viewing habits. ContentWise next-generation solution enables CVA to utilize: Personalized content discovery with context-aware algorithmic and social content recommendations; Automatic micro-genres, dynamically adapted to CVA Spanish offering; Assisted content curation tools, including business rules providing total control to editorial and marketing teams. ContentWise is the TV personalization software that gives broadcast, Pay TV and OTT operators total control over the curation and automation of the Personalized TV experience, providing a UX engine API that controls each user interface element across screens and apps.