Innovative technologies have regularly reshaped the world. In the last few decades, inventions like the personal computer, the internet, and the smartphone have dramatically enhanced human productivity, while creating tremendous wealth in the process. And artificial intelligence (AI) promises to be the next transformative technology. In fact, research company McKinsey estimates that AI could boost global economic output by 16% (or $13 trillion) between 2018 and 2030. Companies like Nvidia (NVDA 1.74%) and Lemonade (LMND -6.03%) could be major beneficiaries of that trend because both are using AI to shape the future of technology.

The company that would become PayPal Holdings first entered the electronic payments space in 1999, a year after being founded as Confinity. Confinity merged with Elon Musk's x.com in 2000 and was renamed PayPal the following year. The company went public in 2002 shortly before its acquisition by eBay, through which it became "the site's official payments provider." Today, PayPal processes more than 35,000 transactions every minute. In the last year, PayPal has processed some $1.2 trillion in total payment volume (TPV). On its website, the company claims to have grown to 416 million active consumer and merchant accounts and employs 27,700 employees.

A new report reveals that robots working in Amazon fulfillment centers are leading to more injuries among human employees - although the e-commerce giant claims the technology reduces incidents. Based on internal records from 150 warehouses, serious injuries were 50 percent higher at facilities with robots than those without, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting's news site, Reveal. There were 14,000 serious injuries in 2019 - a spike of nearly 33 percent from 2015, and nearly double the industry average. The overall injury rate for the 150 facilities was also almost double the industry standard, according to Reveal. Amazon insisted its numbers are inflated because it encourages workers to report even minor incidents.

UNISOC today announced the launch of its new AI-enabled edge computing platform, Tiger T710. Designed for a comprehensive range of AI applications in industrial, commerce, medical care, home, and education, the platform will help to accelerate the transition from the traditional industrial society to a smart society. Representing a new generation of UNISOC AI solutions, Tiger T710 is based on octa-core architecture that consists of four 2.0GHz ARM Cortex-A75 and four 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A55 cores. Using next-generation chip architectures, the UNISOC Tiger T710 boasts high-performance computing, high energy efficiency and reduced development time. UNISOC Tiger T710 is the first chipset platform that adopts the innovative heterogeneous dual-core architecture NPU, allowing it to cope with increasingly complex application scenarios and meet greater demand for computing power. According to the latest AI Benchmark chip testing list released by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, the UNISOC Tiger T710 tops the leaderboard with an outstanding score of 28,097.

Early AI adopters are starting to shift industry profit pools. Companies need strong digital capabilities to compete. The diffusion of a new technology, whether ATMs in banking or radio-frequency identification tags in retailing, typically traces an S-curve. Early on, a few power users bet heavily on the innovation. Then, over time, as more companies rush to embrace the technology and capture the potential gains, the market opportunities for nonadopters dwindle.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been implemented and is delivering on its promise at least at large companies including Facebook, Google, and Netflix. Retailers are using AI-powered robots in their warehouses, Utilities use AI to forecast electricity demand, Automakers are using AI for autonomous cars, and Financial Services companies are using AI to better understand their customers, look for potential fraud, and to identify new products/services customers will want. But as we look beyond the technology segment and these specific examples, AI adoption is still at a very early level. The typical company who has successfully adopted AI is larger than their industry peers, have already embraced the digital transition and well on the path to implementation, employ AI in the core of their value chain, adopt AI to increase revenue, and have the full support of executive leadership. The good news (according to the McKinsey Global Institute) is companies who are leading AI adopters have profit margins from 3 to 15 percentage point higher than industry averages in their market segments.

On Tuesday, Tesla held its annual shareholder meeting. As expected, none of the controversial shareholder votes passed--there will be no independent CEO replacing Musk, and his brother and the other two candidates were reelected to the board with no drama or fireworks. Even Tesla's chief counsel Todd Maron referred to the opening agenda items as "the boring bits." Things got more interesting once Musk took to the stage for a Q&A session, answering queries submitted in advance via Twitter and then from the audience. It was an odd performance, often feeling more like a Netflix comedy special than a shareholder meeting.

A report by IDC, which follows the tech industry, estimates that worldwide spending on artificial intelligence (AI) could increase at an annual pace of 50% through 2021, hitting $57.6 billion in revenue at the end of the forecast period. Several companies are scrambling to integrate AI into their products and services to make sure they don't miss out on this opportunity. For investors in the AI boom, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is one such company to consider, thanks to its tangible progress in this space. Here's how AI is impacting Microsoft now, and what it means for the company's future. Microsoft has already started reaping the benefits of AI in areas such as cloud computing and productivity software and services.

Does a robot manage your money? For many of us, the answer is yes. Online and algorithmic investment and financial advice is easy to come by these days, usually under the moniker of "robo-advisor." Startups such as Wealthfront, Personal Capital, and Betterment launched robo-advisors as industry disruptors, and incumbents, such as Schwab's (Intelligent Advisor), Vanguard (Personal Advisor Services), Morgan Stanley and BlackRock have joined the fray with their own hybrid machine/advisor solutions. It's clear that robo-advisors and AI play an important and growing role in the financial services industry, but a question remains. Will robo-advisors disrupt corporate capital allocation the same way they have personal capital allocation?

Does a robot manage your money? For many of us, the answer is yes. Online and algorithmic investment and financial advice is easy to come by these days, usually under the moniker of "robo-advisor." Startups such as Wealthfront, Personal Capital, and Betterment launched robo-advisors as industry disruptors, and incumbents, such as Schwab's (Intelligent Advisor), Vanguard (Personal Advisor Services), Morgan Stanley and BlackRock have joined the fray with their own hybrid machine/advisor solutions. It's clear that robo-advisors and AI play an important and growing role in the financial services industry, but a question remains. Will robo-advisors disrupt corporate capital allocation the same way they have personal capital allocation?