How Adobe, Salesforce and Others Are Embracing Machine Learning

Compared with all the attention given to the giant AI-related investments made by tech giants, the investments being made by many enterprise software firms don't get as much attention. But as talks with industry execs often drive home, investments in software features that leverage AI/machine learning have also become a key R&D priority for many publicly-traded enterprise software firms -- even if their spending on such work can't compare with what tech giants are doing. When looking at how enterprise software firms are using "AI" to strengthen their offerings, it's worth remembering that there's a difference between broader investments in machine learning, and investments in deep learning in particular. Machine learning (ML) covers the general use of algorithms that analyze data to make conclusions and predictions, and which get better as more data is analyzed. Deep learning (DL) is a computationally demanding subset of machine learning that involves creating artificial neural networks (ANN) that in some respects function like a human brain.