Startups are leveraging machine learning algorithms to help players from semiconductor giants to big four accounting firms analyze, predict, and automate within today's enterprise. Organizations are collecting and analyzing more information than ever before -- and relying on artificial intelligence to predict user behavior, develop new solutions, and automate redundant processes. Within the growing field of artificial intelligence, enterprise AI has shown particular promise, emerging as one of the most well-funded categories. Startups in the space offer services ranging from automated data collection from unstructured sources to real-time data analysis and syntehsis. In this briefing we look at private market trends, AI startups, and prominent industries using AI algorithms.

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is being leveraged to do incredible things, from breaking down cultural barriers with smart translators, to helping doctors and biochemists better understand, prevent and treat the world's deadliest and most confounding diseases. Technology is bridging the gap from imagination to reality faster than ever before, but we have only scratched the surface of what AI can help us accomplish. At Microsoft, we believe AI has the power to transform our world. By building and leveraging powerful platforms like Microsoft Cognitive Services, we can amplify human ingenuity in ways we never could have imagined: changing how we work, play and live. Our approach to AI isn't just limited to our products, but also how we participate in the broader community.

In early May, New York-based tech startup Agolo completed its first seed round of funding, pulling in over $3.5 million in investments from Microsoft Ventures and CRV, with participation from Point72 Ventures and Franklin Templeton. But how did this entrepreneur go from Egypt to snagging such overwhelming corporate interest in the heart of the Big Apple? An interview with Mohamed AlTantawy - Egyptian, AUC graduate, and co-founder of Agolo - reveals how the startup progressed from ideation to actualization. AlTantawy's AI-powered startup provides machine summarisation software that gathers documents from around the web and breaks down key points for the user, eliminating the need to spend hours sifting through information to find the most important details, and works through natural language processing technology. "This is the area of computer science where algorithms try to make sense of human language," the entrepreneur explains.

Element AI -- a Montreal-based platform and incubator that wants to be the go-to place for any and all companies (big or small) that are building or want to include AI solutions in their businesses, but lack the talent and other resources to get started -- is announcing a mammoth Series A round of $102 million. They include Fidelity Investments Canada, Korea's Hanwha, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, National Bank of Canada, NVIDIA, Real Ventures, and "several of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds." But the basic model is not: Element AI is tackling this problem essentially by leaning on trends in outsourcing: systems integrators, business process outsourcers, and others have built multi-billion dollar businesses by providing consultancy or even fully taking the reins on projects that businesses do not consider their core competency. Element AI says that initial products that can be picked up there include predictive modeling, forecasting models for small data sets, conversational AI and natural language processing, image recognition and automatic tagging of attributes based on images, 'aggregation techniques' based on machine learning, reinforcement learning for physics-based motion control, compression of time-series data, statistical machine learning algorithms, voice recognition, recommendation systems, fluid simulation, consumer engagement optimization and computational advertising.

After helping to launch the Partnership on AI with Google, Facebook and others; and doubling down on AI research, today Microsoft unveiled a new initiative that points to how it plans to target specific verticals in what can potentially be a very nebulous field -- while also raising the public image of AI as some grow concerned about the implications of its encroaching influence. The event was led by Harry Shum, Microsoft's EVP of its AI and Research Group, along with Emma Williams, GM of Bing Studio; Chris Bishop, Distinguished Scientist and Laboratory Director at Microsoft Research Cambridge; and Eric Horvitz, technical fellow and director of Microsoft Research Labs. Microsoft's R&D labs in Cambridge, UK (the first Microsoft set up outside of the US) are 20 years old this year, and Microsoft is unveiling some other new programs in the area -- including a new Microsoft Research AI group; a new "Aether Advisory Panel" (an acronym for "AI and Ethics in Engineering and Research") that will report directly to senior management; a new partnership with the Amsterdam Machine Learning Lab; and a few new experimental products that are using AI, such as a new PowerPoint Presentation Translator. This is an interesting and important twist on the AI challenge: many worry about how AI will replace humans, and/or will quietly help evade ethical and privacy oversights -- "societal angst" as Microsoft's Emma Williams, the GM of Bing Studio and its "EQ Expert", put it (EQ: emotional quotient).

Intel and Microsoft have been on something of an artificial intelligence (AI) investment binge of late, with the chip and software giants announcing a slew of deals this week via their respective VC arms -- Intel Capital and Microsoft Ventures. Perhaps the most notable of these was Element AI, which raised a gargantuan $102 million in what is one of the largest series A rounds in recent times. The Montreal-based startup, which helps connect companies with machine learning experts, drew in some other interesting investors besides Intel and Microsoft, including rival chipmaker Nvidia. The Element AI deal followed just a day after Intel and Microsoft joined forces for a $15 million investment into CognitiveScale, a Texas-based startup that uses AI to harness big data and deliver insights and recommendations. The very same day, Intel participated in a $16 million round into California-based robotic vision startup Aeye, while on Monday Microsoft got involved in a $20 million funding round into CrowdFlower, a platform that meshes machines with human input to ensure data science teams have access to properly tagged, clean data.

The race for artificial intelligence technology is on, and while tech giants like Google and Facebook snap up top talent to build out their own AI-powered products, a new startup has just raised a huge round of funding to help the rest of us. Element AI -- a Montreal-based platform and incubator that wants to be the go-to place for any and all companies (big or small) that are building or want to include AI solutions in their businesses, but lack the talent and other resources to get started -- is announcing a mammoth Series A round of $102 million. It plans to use the funding for hiring talent, for business development, and also, to put some money where its mouth is, by selectively investing in some of the solutions that will be built within its doors. "Our goal remains to lower the barrier for entry for commercial applications in AI," said Jean-François Gagné, the CEO of Element AI, in an interview. "Everyone wants to have these capabilities, it's hard for most companies to pull it ...

The technology titan is bullish on AI lately and that zeal is extending beyond its own product portfolio and into its investment strategy. Late last year, Microsoft Ventures invested in Element AI, an AI research lab and incubator based in Montreal, using a new fund earmarked for AI investments. The latest AI innovator to catch Microsoft's attention is Agolo, a New York City software maker that uses contextual AI to analyze content and distill it into summaries that deliver key points to users depending on their interests. On May 3, the startup announced it had raised $3.5 million in a round of financing led by Microsoft Ventures and CRV. Remarks from Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice president at Microsoft Ventures, reveal how Agolo's technology aligns with Microsoft's focus on productivity technologies that help "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," according to the company's mission statement. "By applying its summarization system to news, chat, voice and video content, Agolo enables efficient consumption of large amounts of data, increasing productivity in the workplace," Kashyap wrote in a blog post.

Some 2,500 lightning strikes were recorded across Western Washington Thursday as powerful thunderstorms marched up the state, getting everyone's attention and lighting up social media with beautiful photographs, such as the one below. In tech news this week, we're tracking a new state-by-state jobs report from Apple, Microsoft Ventures' latest A.I. investments, Seattle's new broadband privacy rules, and Congresswoman Suzan DelBene's new caucuses on reality (virtual and augmented) and digital trade. This one is from a few shots layered, all the bolts are in the right place. CEO Tim Cook pledged a $1 billion investment in U.S. advanced manufacturing. In addition to direct employment, Apple counted 81,100 jobs in Washington connected to its App Store ecosystem.

All eyes are on Montreal these days as a hub for deep learning. "Clearly it's a place where everybody wants to be if we want to tap into that talent," says Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice-president of Microsoft Ventures in San Francisco. Montreal's pre-eminence as a deep learning centre can largely be attributed to the efforts of Yoshua Bengio, considered to be one of the three "co-fathers" of deep learning technology. Bengio not only engaged in cutting-edge research at the Université de Montréal long before deep learning was considered viable; his work has spawned an ecosystem that many say is unrivalled in the artificial intelligence (AI) world. That ecosystem includes the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) which has been funded by government and private sector parties, including Google and Microsoft, among other tech notables.