In addition, businesses need a robust fraud mitigation strategy, one that replaces manual fraud mitigation with AI and machine learning, …

Machine learning (ML) firm Applied AI Company (AAICO) has secured $42 million in funding to help companies in Europe and the U.S. reduce their reliance on manual business processes. "We are humbled by the support of our investors in current market conditions," Arya Bolurfrushan, the company's founder and CEO, said in a news release. "We take this responsibility seriously and are clear-eyed that a capital raise is not an indicator of success. We continue to keep our heads down, building great products for our U.S. and U.K.-based customers." Founded in September 2021 and based in Berlin, San Francisco and the United Arab Emirates, AAICO's goal is to "develop targeted machine learning driven products that automate mission-critical business processes involving manual or repetitive work," Bolurfrushan said.

Since the start of the pandemic, many restaurants have seen great success taking their menus online, offering off-premise ordering via digital platforms. In a challenging labor market, these ordering channels provide a more efficient option for restaurants, enabling consumers to act as their own order taker. Yet, for all brands' efforts to incentivize adoption by making these channels as convenient and intuitive as possible, many consumers still prefer to call their order in via phone, the old-fashioned way. The ongoing popularity of phone ordering poses challenges for restaurants at a time when there is not always time to answer all the calls coming in. Victor Matchie, owner of Aloha, Oregon-based sandwich chain Monkey's Subs, spoke with PYMNTS about how the company's conversational artificial intelligence (AI) voice assistant, from speech recognition company SoundHound, enables the restaurant to meet this demand without the bottlenecks that can otherwise result from call-in orders at peak times.

SoftBank is investing $146 million in the South Korean artificial intelligence (AI) company Qraft Technologies Inc. to help it expand into the U.S. As The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Monday (Jan. The companies declined to disclose Qraft's valuation, per the WSJ. SoftBank, based in Tokyo, is one of the largest tech investors in the world, managing a portfolio in excess of $100 billion. Qraft has 50 employees, most of whom work on the company's AI project and who own about a third of the business, with outside investors controlling the rest. "SoftBank [now] makes up a large portion of that," Robert Nestor, the U.S. CEO of Qraft., told the WSJ.

In 2016 and 2017, chatbots were seen as one of the most important additions to the digital ecosystem, with some experts predicting that they would transform eCommerce, replace apps and save shopping malls, among myriad other capabilities. But lackluster artificial intelligence (AI) led most companies to put their plans on the backburner. Also see: Can Chatbot Concierges Save The Mall? Less than five years later, though, AI has advanced enough that some eCommerce executives are willing to give it another shot, looking at platforms such as Messenger and WhatsApp as the next step to reaching consumers. "The messaging ecosystem is giant -- lots of channels depending on where you are the world and what market you're in -- and eCommerce is shifting," Matt Ramerman, president of Sinch for Marketing, told PYMNTS in a recent conversation. "Will dot-com stores go away? No chance, but the share of balance moving toward wanting to be able to shop a catalog with a smart … AI system, and being able to shop in messaging, is the future."

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) by hospitals is now hitting its stride after a long ramp-up as more systems and facilities sink serious dollars and effort into connected healthcare. Funded in part by a $20 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), MassAITC's stated mission is to advance in-home connected care as "90% of older Americans would prefer to stay in their homes as they age," but with Alzheimer's presenting daunting challenges. "While at-home health care technologies hold significant promise, they have not been specifically developed for older adults or Alzheimer's patients, caregivers and their clinicians. Further, many current treatment and intervention regimes are limited in terms of their ability to be remotely delivered, managed and adapted to patient needs and caregiver abilities." Adapting to consumers' developing digital health preferences is becoming a prime differentiator for providers.

The connected economy has tremendous untapped potential in the healthcare industry. A case in point can be seen in one of the key pain points uncovered by the pandemic: the lack of connectivity that exists between various points of care. When data flow is interrupted, time and money are wasted. In an interview with PYMNTS, Dr. YiDing Yu, chief medical officer of healthcare-centric AI platform Olive, told PYMNTS that the health care system, marked by manual processes and paper flows, can be dramatically improved through the use of advanced technologies, notably artificial intelligence (AI). The company has maintained that it has been building the first healthcare "AI workforce" that automates workflows and streamlines manual tasks through its AI-underpinned software as a service.

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to make its way throughout the back office, exploring new areas to automate and optimize, freeing up human experts for more strategic initiatives. Today, the standard level of AI in a process like accounts payable (AP) most often appears as a technology that can automatically "read" key documents like invoices and identify and extract important information like supplier and pricing. Alexander T. Hagerup, co-founder and CEO of Vic.ai, recently told PYMNTS that AI has a far greater opportunity in the enterprise, including in AP automation. In an interview, Hagerup discussed his vision for the technology's presence in a notoriously complex and manual area of the back office and considered what the adoption curve may look like as more professionals feel comfortable with technology taking over important actions. As AI technology becomes more sophisticated, some of the most ingrained pain points of AP workflows no longer seem like difficult challenges to overcome.

High tech continues to make inroads in financial services, and now regulators want more insight -- and input -- into how technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) can and are being used by enterprises. In a joint statement this week from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Credit Union Administration, those agencies are seeking information and commentary on how financial institutions (FIs) are being used in activities as far-flung as lending and risk management. As reported by PYMNTS earlier in the year, Mastercard Vice President, Global Head of Product for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Express and Credit Risk Amyn Dhala told Karen Webster in an interview that technology such as AI can make real-time risk management attainable. It can help banks reduce tens of millions of dollars in losses, which will get the attention of every financial services company on the planet. AI can also improve customers' interactions with their FIs, he said.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the food service sector by helping restaurants boost their sales as well as improve and automate systems that were once managed by staff. It can also serve as a powerful tool in restaurants' fight against fraud, which is becoming an increasingly prevalent issue as bad actors target the flood of customers using digital channels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health crisis has forced some eateries to close entirely, while others must operate at reduced capacities depending on state and local restrictions. Perhaps the one bright spot has been the surge in mobile ordering, with customers' use of restaurant apps skyrocketing and helping restaurants make up for some of the income they have lost to pared-back dine-in sales. This increase has made the space more appealing to fraudsters, however, who aim to blend in among legitimate consumers to perpetrate their misdeeds.