Yes, we did play more video games during the coronavirus pandemic. Hey, when you are asked to stay at home and social distance as a way to stop or at least slow the spread of COVID-19, who could blame you for bingeing on "Animal Crossing," "Call of Duty" or "Fortnite." More than half of players (55%) said they played more games during the pandemic, and most players (90%) said they will continue playing after the country opens up, according to a survey of 4,000 U.S. adults conducted by market research firm Ipsos in February 2021 for the Entertainment Software Association. For players during the pandemic, video games were a source of stress relief (55%) and distraction (48%), the survey found. Video games also served as an escape and a break for children, 71% of parents surveyed said.

If you've been having trouble finding love on dating apps, you might want to try dating one of your friends, a new study suggests. The study authors, based in British Columbia, Canada looked at data from just under 2,000 couples of different demographics. They found two thirds started out as just friends, suggesting that establishing a platonic connection with someone first is conducive to a solid romantic relationship later. The study suggests that the cliché of falling in love at first site – a frequent trope in the Hollywood movies of the silver screen – is slightly outdated in the 21st century. Built on a more solid foundation?

The stat comes from a survey of 347 business leaders across a variety of industries conducted by Australian data AI company Appen. While about 31% of the respondents said the pandemic has either somewhat (24%) or significantly (8%) delayed AI strategies, about 41% said the pandemic had actually sped up such efforts. The report also found an increase in the number of execs who said AI strategies were now led by members of the C-suite--a jump to 71% of respondents from 40% last year--suggesting that companies increasingly see the field as essential to their core business. Budgets are growing too; 28% of execs say their allocated AI budget is between half a million and $5 million, twice as many as last year's 13%. The small fraction with AI budgets beyond $5 million has similarly doubled from 4% to 8%.

U.S. Ranks Third in AI Adoption for Staffing Solutions, While Southeast Asia Leads the Charge, Finds CEIPAL Report ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 11, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- A new global survey from CEIPAL, a SaaS provider for the front- and back-office business operations of staffing companies, reveals universal acceptance of artificial intelligence (AI) as the future of recruitment. According to the 2019 Artificial Intelligence in the Recruiting Industry benchmark report, two-thirds of all staffing firms will adopt AI-driven ATS (applicant tracking systems) by the end of 2020, while 79 percent of enterprise staffing firms (firms with more than 100 recruiters) will have done the same. "As the first technology company to deploy an AI-driven ATS solution, CEIPAL has enjoyed a front row seat to the disruption that's happening in this industry by way of artificial intelligence, which provides us a unique opportunity to establish industry benchmarks," said Sameer Penakalapati, founder of CEIPAL. "Now that the reality of AI technology in our industry has actually caught up to its buzz, we want to quantify the sea change it's causing and share that data with our customers and the rest of the staffing world in preparation for the coming new year." The vast majority of respondents to CEIPAL's benchmark survey indicated either current reliance on AI-driven ATS solutions or future deployment of such technologies within the coming year.

Have you ever commiserated with your colleagues that your boss acts like an automaton? This soon might be more than just a figure of speech – and some employees don't necessarily think that would be a bad thing. By 2030, up to 800 million workers around the world could be replaced by machines. The fear of rampaging robots isn't just restricted to jobs. Leaders in emerging technology, such as Elon Musk, have suggested artificial intelligence (AI) is "a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization."

Finance firms are using machine learning (ML) across their businesses with the technology's spread likely to continue as the obstacles it faces are not deemed insurmountable, according to a survey carried out by the Bank of England. The survey, which had more than 100 respondents, revealed that around two-thirds of financial services companies in the UK are using ML. The technology is used to replace manual tasks in the industry through its ability to recognise patterns in data and make decisions. "ML has wide-ranging applications in financial services and, when combined with increasing computational power, has the ability to analyse large data sets, detect patterns and solve problems at speed," said the Bank of England. "The use of ML has the potential to generate analytical insights, support new products and services, and reduce market frictions and inefficiencies. If this potential is achieved, consumers could benefit from more tailored, lower cost products and firms could become more responsive, leaner and effective."

Silos have always been considered a bad thing for enterprise IT environments, and today's push for artificial intelligence and other cognitive technologies is no exception. A recent survey shows fewer than 50% of enterprises have deployed any of the "intelligent automation technologies" -- such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA). IT leaders participating in the survey say data and applications within their companies are too siloed to make it work. That's the gist of a survey of 500 IT executives, conducted by IDG in partnership with Appian. The majority of executives, 86%, say they seek to achieve high levels of integration between human work, AI, and RPA over the coming year.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Two-thirds (66%) of senior IT decision-makers believe failure to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to a loss of competitiveness, research by global reviews and customer insights company Feefo has found. The findings were revealed in a survey of 100 senior IT decision-makers, covering their attitudes towards AI and its adoption in their respective organizations. Almost half (46%) said their organization is using or plans to use AI to provide personalized summaries of online reviews, with 100% in the accommodation and food sectors saying they will use AI in this way. "If you are serious about personalizing customer-engagement you've got to use AI," said Matt West, CMO, Feefo. "It's encouraging that this message is getting through, but we need to see a lot more businesses actually using AI to transform the way they personalize their interactions with customers."

A lot of modern-day technology and applications rely on artificial intelligence and even then, it is probably just the beginning. A survey conducted by Deloitte in 16 developed markets (not including India), reveals that 65 percent of smartphone users have used an application featuring machine learning in the past. Most of them are personalised features assisting us in day to day life like predictive texts, route suggestions, voice to text, etc. Unsurprisingly, the most common AI tool that smartphone owners have experienced is predictive texts. At least half the respondents included in the survey affirmed their awareness of the tool and more than one-third of them claimed to have used it despite its notoriety for botching up messages. Route suggestions while using online maps such as Here maps or Google Maps is the second-most familiar AI tool that people have experienced.