The financial services industry has seen a great deal of disruption from digital-based alternatives. Many of these challengers use advanced technology and expanded data sets to offer apps that provide financial solutions at a lower cost, with less friction and greater personalization than traditional bank or credit union offerings. Toronto-based startup Flybits believes that the best way to compete in the future is not just by developing innovative products and services, but by becoming the repository of choice for data in addition to money. "I definitely see that banks are in a perfect position, if they innovate right, to be the perfect data vaults for the future – managing the privacy and also the data of their customers," says Hossein Rahnama, CEO and Co-Founder of Flybits, in an exclusive interview for Banking Transformed, a new podcast from Jim Marous and The Financial Brand. "Using AI and machine learning, there is the potential to build a'data marketplace' for banks, fintechs and other data providers to partner and build more services together."

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become part of our daily life, whether through search engine algorithms or the use of Siri or Alexa on our mobile phones for translation, taxi requests or maths calculations. Businesses are taking big steps in adopting AI in their daily operations. The percentage of enterprises employing AI has grown by 270 percent over the past few years, according to Gartner, Inc. Total AI investment by firms globally surged to a record-high $77.5 billion in 2021, up from $36 billion in 2020. Its key findings reveal that the US has benefited most from this investment drive: US-based companies pulled in two-thirds of total global venture funding in AI in 2021 – or $51 billion worth of investment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly making its way out of research laboratories and into the world of business. Industry leaders across hundreds of niches are harnessing its potential -- from call centers deploying chatbots to enhance customer interactions, to banks analyzing innumerable data points within seconds to detect fraudulent activities. While leading companies are leveraging this technology to make more informed business decisions through data and better predictions of customer behavior, customers are increasingly becoming accustomed to the use of AI as well. According to a recent survey, 51% of customers say their expectations of companies are now being influenced by AI. With the future of AI set to change the rules of business, here's what organizations need to know about preparing themselves for its impact to better reap its benefits.

An NLP bot gives an erroneous summary of an intercepted wire. These are examples of how AI systems can be hacked, which is an area of increased focus for government and industrial leaders alike. As AI technology matures, it's being adopted widely, which is great. That is what is supposed to happen, after all. However, greater reliance on automated decision-making in the real world brings a greater threat that bad actors will employ techniques like adversarial machine learning and data poisoning to hack our AI systems. What's concerning is how easy it can be to hack AI.

An NLP bot gives an erroneous summary of an intercepted wire. These are examples of how AI systems can be hacked, which is an area of increased focus for government and industrial leaders alike. As AI technology matures, it's being adopted widely, which is great. That is what is supposed to happen, after all. However, greater reliance on automated decision-making in the real world brings a greater threat that bad actors will employ techniques like adversarial machine learning and data poisoning to hack our AI systems.

An NLP bot gives an erroneous summary of an intercepted wire. These are examples of how AI systems can be hacked, which is an area of increased focus for government and industrial leaders alike. As AI technology matures, it's being adopted widely, which is great. That is what is supposed to happen, after all. However, greater reliance on automated decision-making in the real world brings a greater threat that bad actors will employ techniques like adversarial machine learning and data poisoning to hack our AI systems.

Returning for its third year, Elevate is now simply too big for one event guide. So BetaKit has produced a guide to every event and stage taking place across the seven-day festival. You can find a link to each individual guide on our Guide to Elevate 2019 hub page. "What is going to happen to my data? What is the flow of my data?

The financial services industry has seen a great deal of disruption from digital-based alternatives. Many of these challengers use advanced technology and expanded data sets to offer apps that provide financial solutions at a lower cost, with less friction and greater personalization than traditional bank or credit union offerings. Toronto-based startup Flybits believes that the best way to compete in the future is not just by developing innovative products and services, but by becoming the repository of choice for data in addition to money. "I definitely see that banks are in a perfect position, if they innovate right, to be the perfect data vaults for the future – managing the privacy and also the data of their customers," says Hossein Rahnama, CEO and Co-Founder of Flybits, in an exclusive interview for Banking Transformed, a new podcast from Jim Marous and The Financial Brand. "Using AI and machine learning, there is the potential to build a'data marketplace' for banks, fintechs and other data providers to partner and build more services together."

Knowing when and where a person is, was, and will be can enable magical customer experiences. Flybits today announced that it's raised $35 million in series C funding led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from Mastercard, Citi Ventures, and Reinventure, along with existing partners Portag3 Ventures, TD Bank, and Information Venture Partners. The fresh funding brings its total raised to $50 million, and it comes as Flybits notches 300% growth in 2019 and gears up to hire across sales, engineering, and business development teams and offices, including adding solutions engineers, sales executives, business development reps, and engineers. "Customers are already used to seeing content and recommendations based on their behavior," said CEO Hossein Rahnama. But Flybits leverages an unlimited amount to create far more personalized and relevant recommendations than ever before, all in an effort to help financial institutions deliver real time lifestyle banking that gets at their customers' deeper needs.

Skynet may be coming, but China could usurp the U.S. as the launchpad for the robot uprising. According to a recent report from TNW, China is set to outpace America in artificial intelligence research spending by the end of this year. But there's a big hurdle that the worldwide leader in AI -- whoever that is -- will have to jump first. Before AI takes over the world, it will have to win the hearts and minds of consumers. That's where things get dicey.