Artificial intelligence is helping computers drive cars, recognize faces in a crowd, and hold life-like conversations. General Electric engineers now say they've used the data-intensive technology to develop tools that could cut the industrial giant's design process for jet engines and power turbines in at least half, speeding up its next generation of products. Today, it might take two days for engineers to run a computational analysis of the fluid dynamics of a single design for a turbine blade or an engine component. Scientists at General Electric's research center in Niskayuna, New York, say they've leveraged machine learning to train a surrogate model so that it can evaluate a million different variations of a design in just 15 minutes. "This is, we think, a huge breakthrough," says Robert Zacharias, technology director of thermosciences at GE Research.

Plenty of people around the world got new gadgets Friday, but one in Eastern Tennessee stands out. Summit, a new supercomputer unveiled at Oak Ridge National Lab is, unofficially for now, the most powerful calculating machine on the planet. It was designed in part to scale up the artificial intelligence techniques that power some of the recent tricks in your smartphone. America hasn't possessed the world's most powerful supercomputer since June 2013, when a Chinese machine first claimed the title. Summit is expected to end that run when the official ranking of supercomputers, from an organization called Top500, is updated later this month.

Travel planning is incredibly stressful. Between researching options, paying for bookings, and organizing your itinerary, you may also have to contend with the risk of being beaten and dragged off planes. Machine intelligence can alleviate some of the pain points for both you and the travel companies you book with. Perhaps no one knows this better than Giorgos Zacharia, CTO of Kayak and holder of a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT. "AI is kind of a fashionable domain at present," he says, amused by the recent hype, "but we've been doing machine learning and AI at Kayak for a long time." Almost every aspect of your digital user experience is improved with AI.

Travel planning is incredibly stressful. Between researching options, paying for bookings, and organizing your itinerary, you may also have to contend with the risk of being beaten and dragged off planes. Machine intelligence can alleviate some of the pain points for both you and the travel companies you book with. Perhaps no one knows this better than Giorgos Zacharia, CTO of Kayak and holder of a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT. "AI is kind of a fashionable domain at present," he says, amused by the recent hype, "but we've been doing machine learning and AI at Kayak for a long time." Almost every aspect of your digital user experience is improved with AI. Your preferences towards specific seasons, hotel styles, and price parameters are carefully monitored so that you can be served results you're likely to book.

Travel planning is incredibly stressful. Between researching options, paying for bookings, and organizing your itinerary, you may also have to contend with the risk of being beaten and dragged off planes. Luckily, machine intelligence can alleviate some of the pain points for both you and the travel companies you book with. Perhaps no one knows this better than Giorgos Zacharia, CTO of Kayak and holder of a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT. "AI is kind of a fashionable domain at present," he says, amused by the recent hype, "but we've been doing machine learning and AI at Kayak for a long time." Almost every aspect of your digital user experience is improved with AI.

As Kayak attempts to build a better virtual travel agent, the tech firm is expanding beyond its core website and mobile app, and establishing a presence on additional types of technology platforms. Since mid-2015, Stamford, CT-based Kayak has made its travel-search service available to consumers on Apple Watch, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Teams, Apple TV, Amazon Alexa devices, and Google Home. The integrations with these outside platforms illustrate how businesses are adapting to changing consumer habits and trying to figure out the right ways to interact with users across an array of apps and devices. The moves also speak to the growing emphasis by consumer-focused businesses on deploying products and services powered by artificial intelligence-related technologies, such as chatbots on Facebook Messenger and Slack, and voice-controlled virtual personal assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Google's Assistant, and Apple's Siri. "We have to be where the consumer is," says Giorgos Zacharia, Kayak's chief technology officer. "The consumer should be able to use Kayak in whatever their platform of choice is."

F-35s, F-22s and other fighter jets will soon use improved artificial intelligence to control nearby drone wingmen that will be able to carry weapons, test enemy air defenses or perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions in high risk areas, senior Air Force officials said. "This involves an attempt to have another platform fly alongside a human, perhaps serving as a weapons truck carrying a bunch of missiles," Zacharias said in an interview with Defense Systems. An F-35 computer system, Autonomic Logistics Information System, uses early applications of artificial intelligence that help computers make assessments, go through checklists, organize information and make some decisions by themselves – without needing human intervention. "We are working on making platforms more autonomous with multi-infusion systems and data from across different intel streams," Zacharias explained. ALIS serves as the information infrastructure for the F-35, transmitting aircraft health and maintenance action information to the appropriate users on a globally-distributed network to technicians worldwide, said Lockheed Martin, the contractor that built the system. However, despite the promise of advancing computer technology and increasingly levels of autonomy, Zacharias emphasized that dynamic human cognition is, in many respects, far more capable than computers.

F-35s, F-22s and other fighter jets will soon use improved "artificial intelligence" to control nearby drone "wingmen" able to carry weapons, test enemy air defenses or perform intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance missions in high risk areas, senior Air Force officials said. Citing ongoing progress with computer algorithms and some degree of AI (artificial intelligence) already engineered into the F-35, Air Force Chief Scientist Gregory Zacharias said that technology was progressing quickly at the Air Force Research Lab - to the point where much higher degrees of autonomy and manned-unmanned teaming is expected to emerge in the near future. "This involves an attempt to have another platform fly alongside a human, perhaps serving as a weapons truck carrying a bunch of missiles," Zacharias said in an interview with Scout Warrior. An F-35 computer system, Autonomic Logistics Information System, involves early applications of artificial intelligence wherein computers make assessments, go through checklists, organize information and make some decisions by themselves – without needing human intervention. "We are working on making platforms more autonomous with multi-int fusion systems and data from across different intel streams," Zacharias explained.

Add insurance agent to the list of jobs that can be automated. A robot just gave your insurance agent a pink slip. Zacharia took aim at the $220 billion-a-year US auto insurance industry on Thursday when she launched Insurify. Rather it helps you sort through the maze of competing companies, their premiums and those dizzying coverage plans. Think of it as Travelocity for auto insurance.