Artificial intelligence is becoming less of a futuristic technology and a more integral aspect of today's business landscape. The usage of AI across the business universe is revolutionizing every industry, and Gartner reports that at least 75% of organizations use deep neural networks today. In financial departments, AI is automating menial tasks and reducing errors in traditional manual workflows. There's no doubt that businesses utilizing the right AI for the right reasons are seeing exponential benefits. Unfortunately, not every business unit is as excited about the available AI solutions that finance departments are gifted with.

This is a truly momentous time for machine learning in the enterprise, with investments soaring and a growing number of use cases that can create tangible business value. Organizations are still struggling with important phases of the AI/ML lifecycle. One particular challenge stands out: governance. A lack of robust governance doesn't just limit the potential success of your AI/ML initiative; it could put your entire business in peril as well. That was one of our major findings in Algorithmia's "2021 Enterprise Trends in Machine Learning" report.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the internal communications landscape. The sci-fi revolution is upon us and AI isn't just a scary threat in Hollywood movies any more – it's already embedded in digital tools we use every single day. But if it's not all Big Brother menace, how can we harness this exciting technology to benefit our work in internal communications? I was recently invited to join the #commschat team online, alongside IBM's AI Watson Ecosystem lead Silvia Cambie and other IC pros, to share ideas and insights into how we're teetering on the brink of an AI transformation in employee engagement. Here are my five must-know takeaways from our discussion.

As we edge ever closer towards the beginning of a new year, the next 12 months are set to provide an extraordinarily challenging time for marketers – but it's certainly not'doom and gloom' by any means. Not only will they be expected to seamlessly tackle the increasing volatility, data regulation and apathy towards traditional marketing methods, but they must do it all alongside having a clear, robust and forward-thinking strategy, in order to thrive. At the heart of such a strategy – and any business' plans – needs to be a serious commitment to data and digital via machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). ML and AI can already provide organisations with extraordinary insight into their competitive landscape, current performance and resource allocation. And, in turn, marketers can leverage these insights – along with many others – to radically improve performance. Microsoft has reported that early adopters of AI for business in the UK have already seen a 5% improvement in productivity, performance and enterprise outcomes, compared with those that have not explored its growing range of capabilities.

The pace of technology innovation is undeniably moving faster, growing more intelligent, and becoming inescapable. With each advancement, midsize companies are expanding the scope of their digital transformation efforts – from integrating technology into their business to fundamentally changing their workplace culture, organizational operation, and customer experiences. No organization understands this reality better than finance. The IDC InfoBrief, "The Finance Role in Best-Run Midsize Companies: Improving Decision-Making Using Intelligent Technologies," sponsored by SAP, recently revealed that finance organizations in best-run companies are embracing digital transformation and intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and machine learning. And in return, most of them are improving timely decision-making, running more-efficient and less error-prone operational processes, and empowering knowledge workers to engage in higher-value business activities. Notably, such changes are making finance more than a highly efficient function of cash-flow insight, effective spend management, and invoice and payment processing.

Artificial intelligence in your digital asset management (DAM) portal does the heavy lifting of tagging images for you. A retailer frequently uploading hundreds of visual assets, for example, won't need to manually add general image information and keywords. Allow everyone to find what they need in no time. Content that is not tagged, can be difficult or impossible to find quickly. With automated tags generated with 80% accuracy upon upload, not only marketers - but entire businesses - will they find what they need faster.

At Facebook's recent annual developer conference, Marc Zuckerberg outlined the social network's artificial intelligence (AI) plans to "build systems that are better than people in perception." He then demonstrated an impressive image recognition technology for the blind that can "see" what's going on in a picture and explain it out loud. From programs that help the visually impaired and safety features in cars that detect large animals to auto-organizing untagged photo collections and extracting business insights from socially shared pictures, the benefits of image recognition, or computer vision, are only just beginning to make their way into the world -- but they're doing so with increasing frequency and depth. It's busy enough that the upcoming LDV Vision Summit, an annual conference dedicated to all things visual tech, from VR and cameras to medical imaging and content analysis, is already in its third year. "The advancements in computer vision these days are creating tremendous new opportunities in analyzing images that are exponentially impacting every business vertical, from automotive to advertising to augmented reality," says Evan Nisselson of LDV Capital, which organizes the summit.