Cutting Through The Machine Learning Hype

Let's punch through the noise around machine learning. The tech ecosystem is well acquainted with buzzwords. From "Web 2.0" to "cloud computing" to "mobile first" to "on-demand," it seems as though each passing year heralds the advent and popularization of new catchphrases to which fledgling companies attach themselves. But while the trends these phrases represent are real, and category-defining companies will inevitably give weight to newly coined buzzwords, so too will derivative startups seek to take advantage of concepts that remain ill-defined by experts and little-understood by everyone else. "It's clear that 9 of 10 investors have very little idea what AI is so if you're a founder raising money, you should sprinkle some AI into your pitch deck. Use of'artificial intelligence,' 'AI,' 'chatbot,' or'bot' are winners right now and might get you a little valuation bump or get the process to move quicker. If you want to drive home that you're all about that AI, use terms like machine learning, neural networks, image recognition, deep learning, and NLP. Then sit back and watch the funding roll in."