Microsoft Corp beat Wall Street's quarterly revenue and profit estimates on Tuesday, driven by growth in its cloud computing and Office productivity software businesses, and the company said artificial intelligence products were stimulating sales. The company forecast that revenue in its main segments for the current quarter would match or top Wall Street targets. Shares gained 8.3% in after-market trading following a report by the Redmond, Washington-based technology company that profits were $2.45 a share in the fiscal third quarter, beating Wall Street estimates of $2.23, according to data from Refinitiv and up 10% from the same quarter last year. In regular trading, fears about earnings had sent Microsoft down 2.2%, making it the biggest drag on the S&P 500 on Tuesday ahead of its report. Revenue rose 7% to $52.9bn in the quarter ended March, inching past the average analyst estimate of $51.02bn, according to Refinitiv.

Financial services technology firm Refinitiv has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for Microsoft Teams to provide financial professionals with stock market news and actionable insights. Refinitiv AI Alerts - which is powered by technology from AI specialist ModuleQ - uses permissions and Microsoft 365 interactions to automatically learn the user's individual priorities and recommends content based on email conversations and upcoming meetings. "Microsoft Teams has become an indispensable platform for professionals across financial services, with institutions accelerating their adoption, and increasingly integrating critical data and tools into the platform to simplify the workflow and user experience of professionals," said Andrea Remyn Stone, group head of data and analytics at London Stock Exchange Group, which owns Refinitiv. "Refinitiv AI Alerts brings critical content and insights to Refinitiv's customer base within this platform, allowing users to discover and act on timely information across Teams, Refinitiv solutions and Microsoft 365 seamlessly." The new solution is the latest result of Refinitiv's partnership with Microsoft, which has previously helped financial services organisations connect, collaborate and leverage data to make more informed decisions.

Nvidia Corp on Wednesday forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street expectations, betting on growth in its data centre business as more internet companies set out to invest in artificial intelligence and the metaverse. The company's shares were up nearly 4 percent in extended trading. They have more than doubled this year. The world's biggest maker of graphics and AI chips expects current-quarter revenue of $7.40bn, plus or minus 2 percent, above analysts' average estimate of $6.86bn, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. The coronavirus pandemic boosted demand for graphic chips used in gaming consoles and computers as consumers staying at home spent more time playing video games, with support also from cryptocurrency miners.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters Corp will streamline technology, close offices and rely more on machines to prepare for a post-pandemic world, the news and information group said on Tuesday, as it reported higher sales and operating profit. The Toronto-headquartered company will spend $500 million to $600 million over two years to burnish its technology credentials, investing in AI and machine learning to get data faster to professional customers increasingly working from home during the coronavirus crisis. Thomson Reuters' New York- and Toronto-listed shares each gained more than 8%. It aims to cut annual operating expenses by $600 million through eliminating duplicate functions, modernizing and consolidating technology, as well as through attrition and shrinking its real estate footprint. Layoffs are not a focus of the cost cuts and there are no current plans to divest assets as part of this plan, the company said.

In Asia Pacific (APAC), adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in financial markets is accelerating. Though organizations in the Americas still lead in terms of AI/ML maturity and investment levels, those in APAC follow closely behind, according to a new research by Refinitiv, a leading provider of financial market data and infrastructure. Refinitiv, which surveyed more than 420 data scientists, quants, technology and data decision-makers, found that 69% of respondents in APAC view AI/ML as a core component of their business strategy, and 78% are making significant investment in AI/ML. COVID-19 is expected to further push adoption of AI/ML. According to the study, 31% of respondents in Asia said that AI/ML has become more important in their organization as a result of the pandemic, and 35% anticipate increased investment in AI/ML amid the public health crisis.

We have witnessed a permanent shift in the role that data and technology are playing in investment decision-making. Idea generation techniques that had mainly been seen as emerging or experimental are now increasingly being adopted as mainstream. However, one of the biggest challenges for asset managers is how to incorporate, assimilate and integrate many of these techniques into the daily investment processes of the various investment teams. Regardless of the approach taken, data and how it is integrated and analyzed is going to play an increasingly pivotal role across all investment strategies. I will touch upon some key themes in this blog, but will go into more detail in a series to follow.

The financial services industry is undergoing profound shifts facilitated by technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), but according to Refinitiv, AI will be the single greatest enabler of competitive advantage in the financial sector. Refinitiv's newly released inaugural 2019 Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning Global Survey found that financial institutions have gone beyond experimenting with and testing machine learning, to applying machine learning models. According to the study, 90% of the C-level executives and data scientists surveyed have already deployed machine learning either in pockets or more fully across their businesses. Approximately three quarters said that machine learning is a core component of their business strategy, and that they are making significant investments in it. "The benefits extend beyond automating rules-based repeatable tasks once done by humans," said Tim Baker, the Global Head of Applied Innovation of Refinitiv.

Conducted via 447 telephone interviews of senior executives and data-science practitioners across various financial services firms, the survey also found the quality of data as the primary barrier to machine-learning adoption. Machine-learning has long been the mainstay of deep-pocketed hedge funds, which have combined complex algorithmic strategies with financial data to make big bets on markets. But with the growing use of cloud computing and the constant pressure on banks to reduce costs, machine-learning techniques have seen a greater acceptance among banks. "Thanks to parallel computing and cloud computing, we are seeing the playing field being slowly leveled in terms of machine-learning strategies," said Tim Baker, global head of applied innovation at Refinitiv. The survey also found foreign exchange ranked a distant fourth in terms of structured data by asset class with stocks, fixed income and derivatives the top three.