In 2016, Jessica Wright became one of the first children to be diagnosed by the 100,000 Genomes Project, a program that provides whole-genome sequencing services for patients. She suffered from an unknown disease that caused epilepsy and affected her motor control. No treatment seemed to work. After years of numerous medical tests--from MRI scans to lumbar punctures--and failed treatments, her parents decided to enroll the 4-year-old in the 100,000 Genomes Project. The researchers found that Jessica's genome contained 67 rare genetic variants not present in her parents' genome.

The Digiday AI Marketing Summit is coming up in April and will cover how brands can understand and use AI and machine learning in their marketing. If you're a brand marketer figuring out how to use AI for customer service, content creation, internal data organization and more, apply for a complimentary pass here. Cars aren't the only thing Volkswagen wants to automate. Artificial intelligence is managing the brand's media buys in Germany and proving to be more effective than its media agency. Whenever Volkswagen uses the recommendations from Blackwood Seven, a Danish media agency that uses AI and predictive analytics to forecast ad spend decisions, it sells more cars than it would have if it had gone with its media agency's recommendation, according to Lutz Kothe, the head of marketing for Volkswagen's passenger cars in Germany.

On paper, it seems a good idea. Blackwood charges the company a fee to use the platform and doesn't get involved in taking commissions or dabbling in the often opaque black art of media rebates and trading arrangements. Blackwood's platform uses a wide range of data sources to inform its algorithm, including anything from the weather and previous sales figures right through to research sources such as Nielsen. All of this data allows ad campaigns to be optimised in real time while it also predicts a forecast of the expected business results of a media plan. Basically, the more data you feed it, the smarter it becomes, and clients can expect to see a 25pc-50pc improvement on their campaign's effectiveness, according to Blackwood.