Telstra backing Google and Apple in the race for artificial intelligence on your mobile phone

Telstra's chief scientist says the telco is betting on artificial intelligence on mobile phones being huge in 2017, and believes Google and Apple are in prime position to dominate it, despite the best efforts of competitors such as Samsung, Microsoft and Amazon. Google, in particular, is in "pole position" to take a commanding lead due to the huge, 70-billion-fact "Knowledge Graph" it has been working on for years, which will prove to be an "absolutely critical asset" as smartphones start to take on tasks now done by humans, Dr Hugh Bradlow said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review. Google fired its first shot in the artificial intelligence (AI) wars last week, launching the Pixel phone that features a new AI engine, known as Google Assistant, that can take those 70 billions facts and turn them into useful interactions with the phone's owner. Launching the phone, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai announced: "We're at a seminal moment in computing."