Finland's Ultimate.ai is in the business of creating superhuman customer service employees. Reetu Kainulainen is uneasy with the idea that artificial intelligence and machine learning should be utilised to make customer service employees redundant. "There has been a lot of talk about automation and productivity. Customer service, after all, is a very unique organisation that has one-on-one conversations with customers even if we're talking about a giant telecommunications company with tens of millions of customers," he reminds. "We don't believe that artificial intelligence should replace customer service employees, but that it should be used to give them superpowers."

It's no secret that government is hot on artificial intelligence as a tool to improve the citizen experience – especially given the president's recent signing …

In this blog post, we welcome ex-NGDATA collaborator and now university professor Willem Waegeman who reports on a scientific research project he worked on part-time while working with us. NGDATA takes pride in supporting research to advance the field of machine learning. If you want to learn more about our offerings in this area, take a look at our Lab and do not hesitate to contact us. While 2012 has been the year of Big Data technologies, 2013 is becoming the year of Big Data analytics. Gathering and maintaining large collections of data is one thing, but extracting useful information from these collections is even more challenging.

Today, INRIX is launching its completely redesigned GPS app, INRIX Traffic. The app uses machine learning to better plot your routes in addition to providing turn-by-turn navigation with maps from OpenStreetMap (OSM). The app uses smart algorithms to take most routing decisions out of your hands (although you can still manually adjust if you'd like to). "We designed INRIX Traffic with one specific vision: To help drivers move through their daily lives as quickly and efficiently as possible. The app uses our advanced traffic science to make even routine trips easier," said Bryan Mistele, President and CEO of INRIX.