There are lots of buzzwordy technologies coming to the fore. We use many of them in our everyday lives whether or not we realize it, and they are making their way to corporate travel. Some real-world applications already are in play while other use cases are just now starting to emerge. Lumo chief commercial officer Michael Jacques provides a primer on the 21st Century tech that's helping to push innovation in travel. Artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, machine learning and chatbots are here in our lives and there's more coming.

Artificial intelligence is coming to healthcare. In fact, it's already here, and physicians are benefiting from it, using it to streamline administrative functions and enhance the patient experience. It's getting so that even smaller practices are able to harness this emerging technology, and not only is it making physicians' lives easier, but jumping on the bandwagon is a smart move financially. Patient experience is now a metric that ties into reimbursement, and if that experience can be enhanced, then patients and their caregivers all benefit. The good news for small practices is that they don't have to wait to start implementing some aspects of AI, particularly if they're using the same electronic health records systems as some of the larger nearby providers.

It's clear: Artificial intelligence has transformed the way we live. According to PwC, 55 percent of consumers would prefer to receive new media recommendations from AI -- a development that illuminates how much we've integrated the technology into our lives. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are just a few of the obvious innovators embracing bot-powered business functions, but others are also taking notice. Artificial intelligence's ability to synthesize and analyze data can easily improve business operations for many industries, including hospitality, restaurants, and travel. Such markets experience success when they revise their customer experience or marketing strategies with machine learning and chatbots.

Dhiraj Relli, MD and CEO, HDFC Securities, feels that a lot of personalised tools have evolved to help the customer achieve his goals and take informed decisions. Whether it is online or offline the customer expects different service standards where they not only compare with other competitors but also from other industries whether it is Uber or E-commerce firms. Brokerages need to partner with Fintech players and plug in the solution in their platforms. The way a brokerage gets information from the customer can be through several modes, face to face chat, phone, online trading or chatbots. " Brokerages need get information from the customer in whatever way he is comfortable," he says.

This limited functionality has been a big barrier for chatbots and Machine Learning is an attempt to target this. With experience the chatbot learns responses to different queries and hence increases its functionality. The use of machine learning thus seems very natural for chatbots.

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