Spiro Technologies has added capabilities to its CRM platform to help companies extract notes and capture action items from calls, emails, or text messages with sales contacts. Based on advanced natural language processing (NLP), Spiro uses this data to automatically create reminders for salespeople. For example, if a prospect indicates during a phone call, email, or text that he wants to be contacted at the beginning of the new year, the Spiro platform will automatically generate a reminder about the communication as well as what it judges to be the preferred communication method for the first business day the following January. According to the company, the new capability enables Spiro to make more precise judgments on an organization's pipeline, giving sales leaders a more accurate forecast. For example, during a call if a salesperson says: "I'll make a note that you need more information on the implementation process," or suggests a date or a time for a follow-up, as mentioned earlier, the platform will include the pertinent details in follow-up communications to the salesperson.

This spring, IBM opened a new center in Cambridge for its "cognitive intelligence" software, also known as Watson. Watson is ready to analyze vast quantities of data and spit out deep insights. All that intelligence, according to an IBM release from September, represents nothing less than "a new era in computing." Thirty years earlier, IBM was setting up another office a few blocks away to focus on the then-trendy realm of artificial intelligence. In the summer of 1986, IBM executive Herbert Schorr told an AI conference, "We look at artificial intelligence as an extremely timely technology that is ready for commercial applications."