Google is expected to report a second straight drop in advertising revenue, extending a rare decline as the company battles economic uncertainty and tries to capitalize on recent advances in artificial intelligence. Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, is expected to report $53.7 billion in ad revenue for the first quarter, a drop of 1.8% from the same period last year, according to the consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet. That would be the third drop in ad sales since Google became a public company in 2004, and the second consecutive quarterly decline following a 3.6% drop in the fourth quarter.

PwC has released its latest MoneyTree report for Q2 2018, founding that the AI sector continued to thrive in Canadian venture capital. AI experienced a 104 percent funding increase in Q2 2018 compared to the last quarter, with $222 million CAD ($169 million USD) invested across 13 deals. Total quarterly deals and investment reached an all-time high this quarter; the second highest quarter was Q2 2017, when $209 million ($159 million USD) was invested across 12 deals, boosted by Element AI's historic Series A. "Approximately half of the deal volume this quarter went to businesses that provide analytics tools to their customers," said Dave Planques, national deals leader at PwC Canada. "These companies are supporting enterprises in making better data-driven decisions." "If you think of this industry as analytics on one end of the spectrum to artificial intelligence on the other, the Canadian tech sector is firing on all of those cylinders."