The Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) will again be well-represented at the 2018 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show, taking over Las Vegas Jan. 9-12. This is the second of two stories looking at what some of MESA's members will be showcasing at the largest technology show in the world. Accenture: The expanding connectivity and uses of artificial intelligence (AI), the fueling of the Internet of Things (IoT) by fifth-generation (5G) networks, and the growing consumer applications of blockchain technology will be key stories to watch at the show, according to Gregory Roberts, managing director of Accenture's North American high-tech industry practice. "Additional stories to track will be products becoming more software-smart and the use of in-vehicle AI to drive the connected car market," he said. The expanding connectivity and uses of AI will be a central storyline at CES, he predicted, adding: "The story will be about more pervasive use of the technology than at last year's CES, spanning a wider range of applications, connecting to more devices and networks."

Expert System has signed a worldwide agreement that enables cognitive automation powered by Cogito, transforming business processes to support the needs of market participants. "Artificial Intelligence is disrupting the insurance sector at an unprecedented rate," said Nicky Singh, VP UK & Ireland, Expert System. "In a decade, a significant part of the insurance industry will be powered by AI. It is a reality that we need to embrace. We are proud that the world's largest insurance market is working with us to innovate through AI." Expert System allows businesses to transform effectively by automating business processes and improving customer experience.

Box and Cognizant see abundant opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI), but it's still early days for the technology, according to comments made by both companies' CFOs at the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference in Las Vegas Sept. 12. AI and machine learning (ML) are "certainly a couple of categories that we're pretty excited about" on both a medium- and long-term basis, Box CFO Dylan Smith said. Box has teamed with Google, IBM and Microsoft on various initiatives. The "next wave" of that is "really going to be around all things" AI and ML, Smith told the conference. He added: "We're always looking for ways -- to the extent that it makes sense for our customers and for our economics -- to leverage these public cloud providers for more and more capabilities over time." Asked which company that Box partners with has the most advanced AI and ML story, he said: "It's hard to say. I think, in different categories, it's probably different. I think it's still pretty early and although all of these partners are making some pretty major investments, certainly from an image recognition standpoint" Google is "leading the pack there," while "Microsoft is doing some pretty impressive things from a video recognition standpoint."

Murali Rao, global head of cybersecurity and risk consulting for Wipro, is sympathetic to those charged with mitigating cyber threats inside media and entertainment organizations. Too often they don't have all the necessary data needed to find out what went wrong, or predict what can go wrong. "It's like asking a soldier to fight with two hands tied," he said, speaking April 26 at the NAB Show's Cybersecurity Pavilion. That's where machine learning and applied AI can be useful, or as Wipro likes to call it, a cohesive "Cognitive Cyber Defense" framework, one that can help enterprises maximize the investments they've made in cyber threat mitigation. If cyber threat analysts are to understand the threats against their organizations, they need all the tools in front of them to actually analyze what's confronting them, Rao said, and that includes gathering the necessary data from other associated stakeholders.

Video Metadata Platforms: How to Futureproof Automation With all the promises and product demos from software and service providers around automated metadata and machine learning, the task of planning a roadmap that integrates these technology developments into existing workflows can be overwhelming for content creators. This session will cover a modular, and futureproof, descriptive metadata architecture and explain how Disney is implementing machine learning and automation to avoid lock-in, with any particular tool or platform, as these processes evolve.