The beta version of Spotify's AI-enhanced DJ feature is coming to 50 new countries, after soft-launching in the US and Canada back in February. In recent months, it's rolled out in the UK and Ireland, but now the robotic Wolfman Jack is headed to more countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, in addition to Australia and New Zealand. There's a caveat, but it depends on some initial understanding of what this tool actually does. The Spotify DJ is available to premium subscription members and provides algorithmic recommendations of what to listen to, just like any music streaming app. However, these recommendations are accompanied by AI-generated DJ commentary on what you're listening to. The DJ, based on Spotify's Xavier Jernigan, only speaks English, no matter where you live.

Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) businesses are among the world's most eager data-sharers, according to data from the Infosys Knowledge Institute. According to the survey of 200 A/NZ-based businesses, local companies showed more willingness than their global counterparts in sharing data, artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, and cloud-based AI tools. Indeed, almost two-thirds of A/NZ respondents are sharing in the higher or highest proportion ranges of data compared to a global average of 48 per cent. Moreover, A/NZ companies are 17 per cent more likely to use cloud-based AI tools, while globally the preference remains skewed towards on-premises solutions. A/NZ companies were also 10 per cent more likely to have deployed their first AI system in 2017 or earlier, compared with the global uptick taking place later in 2020.

This partnership will benefit the bank's Australian and New Zealand employees and customers, representing a multi-currency, cross-country commitment to provide a better banking experience. "By partnering with nCino, we will optimise our financial spreading analysis," said Alexa Glynn, Chief Operating Officer at RANZ. "This relationship will provide an excellent opportunity for RANZ to support our growing customer base and modernise our systems. We're delighted that nCino's technology will enable us to offer our customers and employees a better banking experience." The world's leading specialist food and agribusiness bank, Rabobank is one of Australia and New Zealand's largest agricultural lenders and a major provider of business and corporate banking services to the country's food and agribusiness sector. By adopting the nCino Bank Operating System, RANZ gains a digital solution that intelligently transforms the process of spreading financials by leveraging machine learning and optical character recognition (OCR).

The Australian government is strengthening the country's digital economy through new investments in artificial intelligence (AI), cyber security and digital government services, among other areas. The investments, aimed at bolstering Australia's competitiveness in the global technology sector, are part of the government's 2021-2022 budget, which was unveiled last week. The centrepiece of the budget is arguably the A$1.2bn Digital Economy Strategy, a set of policies and actions the government is taking to grow Australia's future as a leading digital economy by 2030. But to put that expenditure into perspective, it is less than half of the A$2.6bn earmarked for a single 6km road project in Adelaide – even as it is welcomed by some quarters of the technology industry.

Machine learning technology is set to reduce herbicide use by up to 80 per cent, according to John Deere's Australia and New Zealand managing director Luke Chandler. Mr Chandler said this would be achieved by moving from a whole-of-field approach to a plant-by-plant management strategy. He said global agriculture was at an inflection point and technological developments would help drive productivity. Farmers across the world have been chasing economies of scale and the company's focus had been on building bigger, faster and stronger machinery to meet that growth, he said. "That's still important but as we shift towards this next frontier of agriculture, we really see machinery being driven by automation, easier to use, more precise types of technologies."

The course enables novice practitioners who are interested in entering the field of AI to become job-ready engineers in just six months. There will be a skill assessment to evaluate the student's current skills and experience, but the only prerequisites are a basic understanding of mathematics and statistics and, or alternatively, relevant experience in the industry, such as an internship. According to the 2020 IT Skills and Salary Report, 'AI, cognitive computing and machine learning' was reported as the second weakest IT skillset in organisations across the world, presenting serious hiring challenges for IT managers.[1] The lack of skilled AI professionals forms part of a broader technology skills shortage in Australia, with new research commissioned by AWS revealing that Australia will require an additional 6.5 million newly-skilled and reskilled digital workers by 2025 to meet future demand for technology skills (79 per cent more than Australia currently has). Jon Lang, CEO of AIICT said, "We're seeing a severe shortage of skilled AI professionals and in many instances, organisations are simply unable to fill these roles. With AI and ML becoming a critical part of the digital transformation process for many organisations, the demand is on the rise for engineers with these specific skills across a wide range of industries."

As some of you know, we have had a Flipboard magazine that deals with Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and of course of Fintech for quite some time. We are known for publishing the short blog post - Crypto stories you may have missed. We have taken a leaf from our book and done the same with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics. From this moment on, we will be putting out a similar blog post for AI, ML, and robotics. We intend to have this continue into the near future.

Building innovative products and services that create a competitive advantage is undoubtedly a strategic priority for most company boards across Australia. So why are less than one-third of senior technology executives in Australia and New Zealand who responded to the 2020 State of the CIO survey spending time on driving business innovation in their current roles? Only 27 per cent of respondents here and across the Tasman, and 32 per cent across the Asia-Pacific region - according to the survey - indicated that this was part of their remit. But it's an activity that more than half (53 per cent) indicated that they would spend more time on in the next three years. What's even more surprising is that 53 per cent of A/NZ respondents said that their teams were not tasked with creating new revenue from the development of new products and services with the remainder (47 per cent) having this responsibility.

At the beginning of 2021, the European Commission will propose legislation on AI that will be, at first instance, horizontal (as opposed to sectoral) and risk-based, with mandatory requirements for high-risk AI applications. The new rules will aim at ensuring transparency, accountability and consumer protection, including safety, through robust AI governance and data quality requirements. Europe's approach to regulating technology is based on the precautionary principle, which enables rapid regulatory intervention in the face of possible danger to human, animal or plant health, or to protect the environment. This perspective has helped Europe to become a global leader in the shaping of the digital technology market. Particularly, with the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, Europe considers it has gained a competitive advantage through the creation of a trust mark for increased privacy protection. Australia and New Zealand have a close relationship with the European Union (EU) and its member countries historically.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to completely transform the way we do things, personally and in business. We have seen many cases of small businesses that have used AI to deliver exceptional services and products that go on to outshine the competition, or examples where businesses have completely revolutionised an internal process. In October, we saw tech startup Devika, work with their client Equalution (health-tech app) to deliver a better service to users. Implementing AI gave the body transformation platform customised health plans for users, based on their mindsets. In the long run it made the service provided much more effective and affordable. With all of these discussions and stories, our aim is to remove some of the "unknown" around AI. Today we're asking people in business "What does AI mean for your organisation?" Keep up to date with our stories LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The ability for artificial intelligence (AI) to learn and process massive amount of data will continue to grow as we make greater strides in computer processing power and deep learning algorithms.