Even in inflationary times, commissaries, supermarkets and other places where food is made or sold are increasingly turning to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies to help them streamline operations, improve the customer experience, reduce waste and give their bottom lines a boost. San Ramon, Calif.-based AI and ML specialist Impulse Logic delivers advanced predictive analytics to create the optimal product flow through a retailer's store to optimize labor availability, ensure product availability, reduce waste, and increase profits, said Matt Frost, the company's CEO. "By optimizing the journey from warehouse to shop floor, stores can improve the way they manage their inventory to drive sales," Frost said. "Our innovative AI and ML-based solution does this by reading in-store data every two seconds." That ensures that store associates can make decisions based on accurate insights and ultimately deliver outstanding customer service and satisfaction.

Big road projects will often uncover historic finds. During the £1.5bn upgrade of the A14 in Cambridgeshire, an archaeologist found what was believed to be the earliest evidence of beer brewing in Britain, dating back around 2,000 years. Generating as much excitement, for different reasons, was the introduction of a very modern concept on the same scheme. The project team pioneered artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning technology to successfully predict times when an accident was more likely to happen – and to take action to stop it. By collecting swathes of information and using the AI, data scientists were able to spot problems before they occurred.

New research published today by the Artificial Intelligence Forum of New Zealand (AI Forum) is calling for urgent action to progress the use of AI to address some of New Zealand's most pressing social, environmental and economic challenges, and not wait for a formal Government-led national strategy. The study called'Towards Our Intelligent Future' positions AI as a fundamental tool to tackle issues highlighted by the Treasury's new Living Standards Framework for Wellbeing, launched in December 2018, and also the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It reveals how New Zealand can benefit from AI supporting wellbeing and sustainability, along with the multi-billion dollar boost to the economy it could provide by 2030. By then, models from McKinsey and PwC show global GDP could be 14 percent higher with AI, and New Zealand could gain between 5.6 and 10.4 percent of total GDP, compared to a scenario without AI. It also shows New Zealand is performing reasonably well in the international AI discussion but highlights an urgent need to invest more and secure supply of homegrown talent.

AI technology can efficiently manage such huge and complex set of database. Moreover, rising focus on developing a human aware automated system is creating an opportunity across high-tech end –user industries. Furthermore, there are specialised software frameworks to support and develop AI technology. For instance, AI companies in China prefer Tensor Flow and Caffe, whereas companies in Singapore prefer Microsoft CNTK, and Japanese companies prefer Chainer software to support AI technologies. AI technology is a vital part of the digital future which will have biggest impact on the APAC region. Machine learning, natural language processing, big data analytics, speech recognition, voice recognition, and image processing are amongst the major AI technologies to grow at a faster rate in the APAC region.

In spring 2015 I launched an internal initiative named Project Copyscale to determine whether it was possible to automate content creation with artificial intelligence. Specifically, I wanted to figure out, could we use machines to write blog posts at scale? The idea was inspired by a SXSW session I attended that year featuring the managing editor of the Associated Press and the CEO of Automated Insights, a company that uses a form of artificial intelligence called natural-language generation (NLG) to create content. The presenters shared how the AP went from publishing 300 earnings reports per quarter written by humans to 3,000 per quarter written 100% by machines using Automated Insights technology. The implications to content marketing, in my mind, were immense.