Report: Machine learning to become "mainstream" by 2018

Machine learning is set to go mainstream in the next two years, according to a new survey by software and application development vendor SoftServe Inc. The new report, based on an April poll of 300 U.S. and U.K.-based medium and large enterprises, shows that 62 percent of firms expect to roll out machine learning-based tolls for business analytics within the next two years. The majority of those companies said the most promising opportunity for machine learning lays in real-time data analysis. According to SoftServe, the survey is evidence that machine learning is moving past the "hype cycle", with enterprises looking to automate analytics processes in areas like business intelligence and cyber security. In the latter area, further evidence of machine learning's progress comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is sponsoring an "all-machine" hackathon at the DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas next month.