TalkingData is a data intelligence service provider that offers data products and services to provide businesses insights on consumer behavior, preferences, and trends. One of TalkingData's core services is leveraging machine learning and deep learning models to predict consumer behaviors (e.g., likelihood of a particular group to buy a house or a car) and use these insights for targeted advertising. For example, a car dealer will only want to show their ads to customers who the model predicts are most likely to buy a car in the next three months. Initially, TalkingData was building an XGBoost model for these types of predictions, but their data science team wanted to explore whether deep learning models could have a significant performance improvement for their use case. After experimentation, their data scientists built a model on PyTorch, an open source deep learning framework, that achieved a 13% improvement on recall rate.

Editor's note: Before continuing, you may first want to read part 1 of this in-depth overview here. NovuMind and Numenta were the only AI companies we visited during this Silicon Valley trip, but even though we were only there for a limited time, we were still able to gain some insights on the developmental trends of AI and deep learning. After Dr. Wu departed from Baidu, he founded the startup NovuMind to focus on deep learning and AI technologies. I accompanied TalkingData's CEO Leo Cui, Mr. Che Pingjue, and Beijing GZT Network Technology's Vice Chairman, Mr. Li Yangshong on their visit to NovuMind. Leo is an excellent go player (ranked at amateur 5-dan).