Cisco this afternoon announced its intent to acquire speech technology startup BabbleLabs. BabbleLabs, founded in 2017, today focuses on improving meeting quality through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. BabbleLabs offers noise suppression and speech enhancement technology, called Clear Edge, that is able to distinguish human voices and quickly mute out all of the non-voice background noise. A couple of examples that most people are likely familiar with are the loud typist and the potato-chip eater. Both are annoying and highly disruptive to meetings.

Now that data is the new oil, AI software startups are sprouting across the tech terrain like pumpjacks in Texas. A whopping $80 billion in venture capital is fueling as many as 12,000 new companies. Only a few will tap a gusher. Those who do, experts say, will practice six key success factors. Some of the biggest wins will come from startups with AI apps that "turn an existing provider on its head by figuring out a new approach for call centers, healthcare or whatever it is," said Rajeev Madhavan who manages a $300 million fund at Clear Ventures, nurturing nine AI startups.

We have a paradox staring us in the face. All that web content creates a great forum for philosophical debate: Will AI save the world or bring about the extinction of homo sapiens? Compelling research demos often show super-human performance on selected cognitive tasks, especially perception and pattern recognition in image, streams, audio, and transaction data. Thus, the possible outcomes also include affordable solutions for complex social problems, advanced diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions, environmental sustainability efforts, climate optimized traffic flow and safety, and cybercrime and fraud prevention. And of course, businesses everywhere appear to be fully expecting to put AI to work in some form as soon as possible.