In part 1 of this article we discussed the industry trend of companies wanting to brand themselves as "AI first" and often positioning themselves as deep learning. We highlighted some of the problems building and deploying a deep learning solution presents and suggest that often other machine learning approaches could provide a solution in a simpler and more cost effective way. In this second part we want to outline our own experience building an AI application and reflect on why we chose not to utilise deep learning as the core technology used. At Aiqudo we have built a personal digital assistant for smart phones. Our goal is to understand what users are saying, figure out their intent and execute the correct action for them on their devices..

Being a child of the 1960s, I was enamored of Star Trek. Among the many future wonders to behold? Computers that could conduct an informed conversation with humans. Fast forward to the present day, and we're getting accustomed to intelligent assistants in our homes and on our phones. Better yet, intelligent assistants are now poised to show their value in the workplace.

Today, I came across "Get Lauren" an art-installation / performance by Lauren McCarthy, and that got me thinking. For her installation, Lauren has equipped a couple of real people with internet-of-things devices and has followed the participants for 24 hours for a number of days. Through the devices Lauren was able to interact with the people and their environment, setting the lights, playing music or providing information. Lauren was, in fact, a human equivalent to the Artificial Intelligence used by products like Alexa or Siri. I find it interesting, essentially intriguing, to have a "real" human behind this service.

The study "Future of IT: Hype vs. Reality" revealed that while these emerging technologies have potential in the workplace, IT professionals are grappling with budget and security concerns as they evaluate the impact these technologies can offer today versus in the future. The results show that among emerging technologies covered in the survey, IT professionals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa expect IoT devices and AI technology to have the biggest impact in the workplace, and VR to have the least impact. In fact, 79 percent of IT professionals in the region said IoT devices will be useful to their business practices in three to five years and 55 percent said the same for AI. Although most IT professionals don't expect mass adoption to take off in the workplace for VR and 3D printers, some industries have significantly higher adoption rates than the industry average. "Despite recent innovations in VR and 3D printing, the majority of IT professionals across EMEA are struggling to find viable use cases for the technology in their organisations," said John Webb, general manager of Europe at Spiceworks. "As a result, many can't justify the investment as opposed to AI and IoT that offer tangible benefits for the workplace today.

When will Siri come out on the Mac? Will Siri be on macOS Sierra? What features will Siri for Mac have? Apple announced a slew of new things at WWDC 2016 including the much anticipated introduction of Siri, its voice activated assistant, to its Mac computers. If you're after the full lowdown on the announcement of macOS Sierra, here is our roundup.