How AI can help brands reach consumers in search

Digital music service Spotify recently acquired machine learning startup Niland to improve its recommendation and personalization technologies. In other words, Spotify wants to better connect its users to music they will like. The heart of this concept is nothing new. Netflix and Amazon, too, use machine learning – a type of artificial intelligence (AI) in which machines learn when exposed to new data without being programmed – to suggest content and products their respective users might like. And while this ability to tap into AI – machines that perform smart, human-like tasks – to analyze internal data is increasingly common, it's a bit more complicated when it comes to using AI to capture consumer attention externally, like, say, in search.