I think fundamental data analysis skills, yes, but machine learning … And using machines to do all of that work, allowing humans to focus on the …

The world of artificial intelligence has grown to impressive heights in recent years, with one study showing that the amount of enterprises integrating AI has risen 270% in just the last four years. With such a boom in the AI sector, many impressive start-ups have emerged with products helping to innovate a variety of areas across a range of different industries. Whether its detecting fake news or the risk of certain cancers, AI technologies are being developed to help with a wide scope of different issues. This piece explores TechRound's lists its top 10 AI companies to watch, all of which have designed technologies to assist with a range of different issues. Founded in 2013, Optalitix consists of a team of specialised actuaries, technologists and data scientists developing software tools with integrated AI and machine learning to help businesses see real, measurable advantages across key business metrics, no matter the business.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, inaccurate and misleading articles burned through social networks. Since then, tech companies--from behemoths like Facebook and Google to scrappy startups--have built tools to fight misinformation (including what many call "fake news," though that term is highly politicized). Most companies have turned to artificial intelligence (AI) in hopes that fast and automated computer systems can deal with a problem that's seemingly as big as the Internet. "They're all using AI because they need to scale," says Claire Wardle, who leads the misinformation-fighting project First Draft, based in Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. AI can speed up time-consuming steps, she says, such as going through the vast amount of content published online every day and flagging material that might be false.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook attends the Viva Tech startup and technology gathering at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2018 in Paris, France. The VivaTech exhibition brings together nearly 1,800 startups alongside the largest international groups. Facebook has confirmed its purchase of Bloomsbury.ai, a London-based startup that's developed a machine-learning tool to analyze and answer questions about unstructured text. With its staff of five, according to Pitchbook, Bloomsbury had raised $1.9 million to date and become a leading expert in natural language processing, Facebook said earlier this week. The acquisition underscores how Facebook is willing to looking outside its walls to regions teeming with AI expertise for the machine-learning solutions to some of its biggest challenges. Bloomsbury was spun out of the tech incubator Entrepreneur First, and the path to commercializing its research was still hazy when Facebook scooped it up, according to TechCrunch, which first reported that Mark Zuckerberg's company was paying between $23 million and $30 million for the startup.

Factmata - An incredible organisation who are using AI to create a cleaner, cutting edge media ecosystem to protect the public, businesses, publishers from misleading content.

Factmata, a London-based company working on machine learning technology able to counter fake news online, has raised £700,000 ($1 million) in seed from a number of investors-- although it has not released its product yet. The round was backed by high-profile personalities such as Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and freedom of information activist Craig Newmark. Past investors include such heavy-weights as Mark Cuban, Mark Pincus, Ross Mason and Sunil Paul. The company is currently piloting a number of projects aimed at flagging up fake news, clickbait, misleading information, and otherwise bad content currently infesting the web. In an interview with TechCrunch, company's founder and CEO Dhruv Ghulati-- a machine learning specialist-- explained that what Factmata is gunning for is a ""community-driven AI: How do we take a machine learning model where you get data to train your model, perhaps pay 10,000 people to flag content?

A startup using artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle the proliferation of fake news and extremist content online will expand after closing a $1m (£720,000) seed funding round that attracted major US backers. London-based Factmata's funding round was led by tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban, but also attracted high-profile investors such as Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, internet entrepreneur Sunil Paul and, more recently, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. The company will put the cash towards research and development, product development and expanding its team beyond machine-learning specialists. The round was initially closed last August but soon reopened to close formally in the last couple of weeks. Read more: Twitter fails to give MPs "straight answers" on Russian influence on Brexit "Every day there's an article or there's someone talking about fake news at the World Economic Forum, so I wanted to keep the round open so people could come in quite late in the process," founder and chief executive Dhruv Ghulati told City A.M. Factmata is developing both business and consumer-facing products, such as an anti-fake news platform for journalists, researchers and the public to use, as well as collaborating globally with advertisers and businesses that can use its algorithms to sift through and identify fake news, spoof sites and hate content. Ghulati, who was recently named one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 On the B2B side, this would help advertisers find junk content on potential sites they would be advertising on.

Governments are having a hard time keeping up with the world of technology, and the EU is no different. By its very nature, governing bodies are slow to change, while the tech industry's speed is astounding -- it's basically like a hippo chasing a cheetah. Tech.eu reported on the unintended side-effects of the new reforms. According to the tech site, there's a general consensus about the reforms' big-picture but the nitty-gritty is hotly debated, especially how it will affect startups. Turns out, startups built around AI, machine learning and big data will be particularly affected.

Facts matter: but is that statement a fact? Suppose it could be proven or refuted – what then? What's the best way to tell someone they've made an error? How do you nudge the world in the direction of truth? These are the questions professional factcheckers wrestle with on a daily basis.

It's been quite an interesting journey for Factmata since we started in January and we're now about to launch a tool that puts factual context in the hands of the people. This will happen around the UK general election, and marks the completion of our Google Digital News Initiative (DNI) project. For 5 months, we've been working around the clock with a distributed team of NLP researchers, PhDs and scientists from around the world to build this, and now finishing off the final touches. As we prepare for launch, we wanted to tell the world about what's next and where we want to take Factmata in the future. Given our team's work in automated fact-checking in previous research, we are uniquely placed to build AI to solve the problem of online misinformation.