Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to capture the imagination and interest of entrepreneurs, investors, big business, and consumers alike. Across sectors and industries, innovators are developing and implementing AI – enabled technologies that streamline processes, improve operational efficiency, and aim to identify actionable solutions to complex problems. As AI technology continues to advance in sophistication; systems, machines, and processes designed to effectively analyze data, provide insights, and make decisions will become commonplace in our world. Whether it is the automation of tasks previously relegated to you and your colleagues at work, the software and hardware that increases your vehicle's safety and will one day power self-driving vehicles, or the algorithms guiding how products are marketed to you, chances are AI is already having a major impact on your day-to-day life. Over the next few years and coming decades, global entrepreneurs will continue to develop the Artificial Intelligence applications that will transform our future.

Wizer's artificial intelligence technology can perform the work of human consumer research experts in building and analyzing consumer research, providing their customers with fast and affordable market insights AI-based SaaS consumer research company Wizer has announced the completion of the company's $4 million Series A Round. The funding was led by SOMV (State of Mind Ventures), a venture capital fund focusing on technology infrastructure. Nielsen Innovate, the early stage investment arm of Nielsen, participated in this round as well. To date, the company has raised $5.5 million, including $1.5 million in seed funding from YJ2, an investment fund backed by the Yahoo Japan Corporation, Nielsen Innovate, Barinboim Group, and the Israel Chief Scientist. Wizer provides marketers and agencies with comprehensive end-to-end market research solutions for brand positioning, product and concept testing, advertising effectiveness measurement, and more, utilizing proprietary artificial intelligence technology to deliver insightful client-ready research, quickly and affordably.

The platform parses various business reports and other sources to assemble background information in specific industry verticals, like ready meals or food/beverages. Currently, the focus is on consumer packaged goods (CPG) and retailers, although new categories can be built. Marketers define goals, then answer a series of questions. The platform pulls appropriate questions from hundreds pre-written by human researchers, and the questions are auto-assembled, without any writing by the marketer, into an online questionnaire of 25–30 questions. The platform learns about a specific business from the questionnaire's results and feedback from the business. The questionnaire is then made available to an online panel of paid respondents via the UK-based firm Lucid.