Why has AI become one of the most popular topics among marketers? Because it makes our lives easier. And then there's the next question: How can it help? We're facing an invasive amount of information, and we need to be able to process the huge chunks of data now available to us and make the best use of them. Yet, in most cases, we are at a loss, and the only easy way is to go by intuition alone.

How it works: If you have said the phrase change wallpaper in your command, the program will download a random wallpaper from unsplash.com,

The pursuit of mans' enduring quest to build and discover new technology is astounding. Although automation has its flaws, our endeavors are motivated by making the impossible possible. To make human-centered, empathetic AI. We've come a long way. Technology is our drudge, we the earnest navigator.

Timely delivery is often a critical deciding factor for the ever-impatient customers to choose service A over service B. Hence, operations/logistics team is a key enabler. The attrition rate in large frontline teams is high, close to 75 percent annually. Yet most companies have aggressive growth targets, necessitating recruitment of high volumes of workers constantly. High-growth companies in this domain like Zomato and Swiggy, grew by more than 50-60 percent by the end of 2018, recruited tens of thousands of delivery boys every month. Vahan Inc. has developed an AI-driven virtual assistant that helps logistics companies scale and automate their hiring process by leveraging the common addiction of messaging applications like WhatsApp and FB messenger. In this talk, the speaker will cover in detail how they developed a complete data collection and natural language processing pipeline for Indian languages and built a chatbot over Whatsapp which is currently connecting companies like Dunzo, Zomato, Swiggy & Rapido Express with potential frontline workers and fulfilling the hiring requirements of this industry in a scalable and autonomous fashion.

An internal project to rewrite how Apple's Siri voice assistant handles "sensitive topics" such as feminism and the #MeToo movement advised developers to respond in one of three ways: "don't engage", "deflect" and finally "inform". The project saw Siri's responses explicitly rewritten to ensure that the service would say it was in favour of "equality", but never say the word feminism – even when asked direct questions about the topic. Last updated in June 2018, the guidelines are part of a large tranche of internal documents leaked to the Guardian by a former Siri "grader", one of thousands of contracted workers who were employed to check the voice assistant's responses for accuracy until Apple ended the programme last month in response to privacy concerns raised by the Guardian. In explaining why the service should deflect questions about feminism, Apple's guidelines explain that "Siri should be guarded when dealing with potentially controversial content". When questions are directed at Siri, "they can be deflected … however, care must be taken here to be neutral".

Machine learning is the most important technology for the business of the future. That's because AI-driven software is already helping companies increase efficiency, improve customer relationships, and boost sales. Researchers estimate that machine learning has the potential to add $2.6 trillion in value to the marketing and sales industry by 2020, as well as another $2 trillion to manufacturing and logistics fields. The International Data Corporation estimates that spending on machine learning will reach $77.6 billion by 2022. This is why companies of all sizes are collaborating with Python development outsourcing firms to source experienced data scientists as needed and develop custom data analytics software.

As 2018 comes to a close, a savvy marketer will be looking ahead to the upcoming year and developing a digital marketing strategy to stay ahead of the competition and boost brand awareness. With so many changes that occurred at the end of 2018, it's important to revamp your strategy and account for current trends, strategies, and technologies to maximize your efforts. Search engines are now favoring clusters of content that surround a particular topic, as opposed to keywords. If you want to stay at the top of the search rankings, you need to develop these content clusters that link to one another. To do this effectively, you need a broad topic outline that covers the most pertinent subcategories.

Facebook announced on Thursday it is rolling out its newest service across the US, a platform for dating. A lot, it turns out. The new service, Facebook Dating, can be accessed in the Facebook app but requires users to create a separate dating-specific profile. It then links users with potential matches based on location, indicated preferences, events attended, groups, and other factors. Facebook Dating will integrate with Instagram and offer a feature called Secret Crush, which allows users to compile a list of friends they have an interest in, to be matched with if the crush lists them as well.

Facebook Inc.'s new dating feature has led to at least one important match: The marriage of users' Facebook and Instagram profiles for the first time. The social giant announced Thursday that it is launching its nascent dating service in the U.S.--a feature that's been tested in 19 other countries since it was unveiled in May 2018. Users can combine elements of their Facebook and Instagram accounts to create a separate dating profile--the most notable way Facebook has ever combined the two entities from a product perspective. Facebook Dating will exist inside Facebook's main app, but users will be able to pull photos from their Instagram profiles into their dating profile, and by the end of the year be able to publish their Instagram Stories to their dating profile as well. Facebook daters can also use their Instagram followers for a feature called "Secret Crush," which could match them with another Facebook Dating user from their Instagram network.

But in business today, often, the boundaries are being established on the fly as we go. Companies routinely don't really know for sure what they can and can't get away with or will get disciplined for. And so while there are some ethical questions wrapped up in it when leaders make some poor judgments, and while leaders absolutely need to take responsibility for what they do, we also need to understand that it's natural for them to be looking for both positive and negative feedback. And arguably, it's significantly harder to think through the ramifications of what leaders are doing objectively when herd mentality takes over. So while the behavior might be disappointing, it shouldn't surprise--repeat offenses by different companies are simply leaders trying to see how far the rules apply, and in what specific contexts.